WIP & Tobey Maguire find Mr.Right with ‘Mr.Real’

In 2008, “Settling” Tries to be the New Black. With designer sperm and no hubby in sight, is a near-perfect life just as good?

Lori Gottlieb has officially jumped on the nerdy husband bandwagon. A single mother, her new piece in The Atlantic Monthly, “Marry Him!” ponders a radical thought: “settling” for a relationship that isn’t the fantasy you thought it’d be, but getting a stable marriage (and a packaged father to your child) in return (click here to read the article). Interesting thought, but can it translate to the screen when the depressing thought of “settling” for less than the man/woman of your dreams can be so alienating?

Warner Independent
Pictures, partnering with Tobey Maguire’s Maguire Entertainment, has optioned Gottlieb’s article as well as the rights to her forthcoming book inspired by it. To be titled Marry Him: Finding Mr.
Real, this is Maguire’s third deal in the past two weeks, after picking up Robert Tannen’s dramatic thriller Hungry Rabbit Jumps and sci-fi adventure comic adaptation Afterburn. After focusing most his energy on high-octane adventure projects in the last few years, is Maguire Entertainment sure they can handle what might turn out to be a romantic comedy? Or more challenging yet, a romantic tragedy? There is a sad pragmatism in Gottlieb’s article about married life that many moviegoers would rather not acknowledge, never mind see played out on the screen.

Gottleib implies that what started out with Mr. Right, then Mr. Right Now, and Mr. Just Tonight has turned into “Mr. Good Enough”. Not perfect, not right, but just a regular guy who knows his place; the “stable, reliable life companion”.

Dating has turning into a nitpicky cultural rite, where even the slightest quirk can be a dealbreaker.  Women dumping men (and vice versa) for their facial hair, table manners, flossing regimen as well as numerous other subjective factors. In this environment, is Gottlieb really saying that women should be running into the arms of these less-than-suitable suitors to wrangle a husband? For help when taking out the trash?

Gottlieb’s work maybe an anathema to young feminists-those idealistic 20somethings teetering in their heels-but those youthful looks will eventually age, and Gottlieb argues for dating, and eventually marrying, the Annoying Habit man instead of kicking him to the curb. 

I, for one, would be more interested in seeing a self-sufficient 50something mother “settle” for a twice-divorced baldie who bores her with endlessly tedious conversation until she eventually unravels completely, takes up with a 24 year old rapper and goes “Match Point” on her dull, society-inflicted husband. This is the 21st century. If audiences wanted to see women “settling” in their lives, they’d be browsing the “silent film” section of Netflix.