The Personals (1998)

hyped garbage

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's a jungle out there… The Personals is a movie for anyone who hasn't yet found what they're looking for or who remembers how tough it can be to find it. Rene Liu plays an eye doctor who's become disaffected with her present life and is craving something more— namely love and marriage. She's attractive, has a good job, and a decent apartment. Up until now she has done everything she's supposed to do, but it just hasn't worked for her. She's still alone. Now, she decides to take the extreme measure of advertising for a husband in the personals. The search leads her down the slippery slope of the modern dating scene whose universal quirkiness transcends the boundaries of all industrialized societies.As a parade of diverse characters respond to the ad from obnoxious to bizarre to tragically pathetic (old coots, odd birds, pervs, nerds, frauds, conmen and salesmen), she starts to wonder if her standards are too high? And, watching the film you have to wonder…Do you have to settle for what's there and what you may not want because of social expectations? In Hollywood's hands, this little film would have become a relentless string of crude and infantile jokes and sight gags contrived to make us groan, but instead, this Taiwanese tale serves us up a quietly understated, poignantly humorous look at the dating scene. No matter where the film might have been set, you're sure to hear a ring of truth to it. At one time or another, we've all been there— whether we like to admit it or not.Might be a little slow paced for some, but, on the whole, a solid little film with which most people will find something to identify. And, whether shy, bewildered, desperate, panicked, or outraged, Liu's performance is surprisingly sympathetic and often quite engaging.

Based around dating and personal ads, there is plenty of humor in the subject matter. Throughout I was kept absorbed and intrigued by how similar our cultures are with respect to dating. There is not a tremendous amount of plot, but some is revealed/tacked on the end.

I find it hard to describe why I liked this film so much. Suffice to say, it takes you to a unique and very real territory about the difficulty in being truthful. I did not realize the journey it had taken me on until its perfect ending, but my sister and I left the cinema in the firm glow of mutual joyous insight. See it, and throw all expectations where they belong: on the rubbish pile.

A single professional woman in Taipei age about 30 (Rene Liu) has placed an ad searching for a husband. The movie is mostly her interviews with the suitors, though her painful past and present emerge gradually when she talks with a professor and leaves messages on her former lovers answering machine and as well as a few flashbacks.Best are the scenes with the mostly weird men who answered the ad.