Autumn in New York (2000)

Although a little boring at some points "Autumn In New York" managed to truly emotionally entertain and interest me. Even after seeing it I am still discovering the hidden meanings it tries to give us. Ironically despite being a romantic drama the romance between the main actors is the biggest downer of this movie. I must have missed the part when Winona Ryder's character's age is revealed, but she just doesn't pass as a 21 year old. I thought she was supposed to be like 26 or something. Not that there's a big difference in age, but she was a bit misscast, despite her child like face. On the other side she was really attractive in this movie and constantly reminded me of this cute girl I know. Gere looks and feels pretty old, but he's a believable 48 year old playboy. The movie is hence held together by good dialogues and nice and memorable scenes. There's also a great line Gere says to Winona after he cheats on her and realizes he screwed up: "Can you let me love you?" I've read some pretty different explanations of this movie, but basically I think it's about Gere's character slowly discovering he's been missing a great deal of life, he's never loved. So after "accidentally" falling in love with Charlotte he can't bear the though of her dying and tries everything in his power to prevent her death(this might have something to do with his previous life where he was always the one with power, whilst the women weren't). But he has to realize that in Charlotte's case he's completely powerless and there's where the point of the movie lies. He chose true love (despite knowing that Charlotte was going to die soon) over the life he thought he was happy with. It might sound ridiculous but I kind o envy the guy. I too would rather truly love a woman, if only for a short period of time, than spend a life with a woman I didn't love. I would be a happier man, even after that true love would, for some reason or another, leave me, because I'd know I loved, even if it didn't last. I was pretty surprised at most of the bad reviews and comments, but on the other side I couldn't help but to agree with most of them. It is a crude love story and it is somewhat predictable and boring, but it was overlooked for the most important reason it tries to tell us. Despite being an unconventional and hardly believable love story "Autumn In New York" is a movie that in the end managed to show me you have to take even the biggest sacrifices to find true love. Sad and Beautiful. 7/10