The Book and the Rose (2001) Online

I just finished watching on a weekly short film show called "Imagemakers." When it ended, i gave it a standing ovation. Sheer brilliance is what this film was all about. Though the characters seem like never in a million years they would exist, there's still a part of me that longs for the feelings the man and the woman had for each other. If you ever get the chance to watch this, don't pass it up!

I found this one on Netflix streaming movies. As it was finishing I thought to myself, 25 to 30 minutes is just about right for a movie, it gives time enough to tell everything that needs to be told, and short enough that your attention doesn't wander.

The story is set in 1941 and 1942. It actually begins at the end, with a brief encounter in a Philadelphia railway station, then is told as a flashback starting 16 months earlier, in 1941.

It is about a young man, a math teacher in Huntington, WV, who finds a book, a 1st edition "Anna Karenina". He is thrilled with his find, but as he starts to read it is at first disappointed that it contains lots and lots of handwritten notes in the margins. But when he actually began to read the notes he becomes very interested in the person who wrote them, the former owner who had mistakenly sold it. He hunts her down now living in Philadelphia.

They begin to correspond, they get into a long-distance friendship without ever meeting or even exchanging photos. As the war kicks in he is drafted, and after training gets orders to go overseas. But with three days before he ships out decides to stop off in Philadelphia, meet the lady, and return her book to her. He calls and leaves a message with his arrival time, and asks that she wear a rose so that he can identify her.

A very nice little story, with a good resolution. Do not read further if you have not seen it.

SPOILERS: In the train station he spots a beautiful young lady walking towards him and utters the name of the lady, but she is not wearing a rose and she walks on. Then he spots a rather matronly woman who was wearing a red rose. At first he decides not to follow through, to not meet her. But then he realizes that would not be right, after all he had built up a nice friendship through letters, and what if she didn't look like what he imagined. But when he approached her, identified himself, and asked if he could buy her dinner, she replied that she had no idea what this was all about, but a young lady had asked her to wear the rose and when a man showed up direct him to the café' across the street. There he found the pretty young lady he had seen minutes earlier, she gave him a character test and he passed it.

Astonishingly good program in all its simplicity.

First viewing, it seems like you have watched simply the most basic love story, "And they all lived happily ever after!!" But then upon second-thought, you realize had he put the book away in the duffel bag and left, without talking to the woman with the rose, he would have never met the woman he wanted to meet in the restaurant.

If he had deemed the gray-haired, doddering old bitty to be beneath him and not actually loved the woman without an image who wrote to him, he never would have met his intended, and she likewise would have perceived him as overly superficial, incapable of loving her beyond her looks.

He is even presented another beautiful woman he could have easily run off with, but this would not be the author of his letters, his pen pal, his Charlotte Bronte, a woman of depth who read Anna Karenina.

The only glitch, as anyone who watched the program will attest, was the failure to authenticate the forties look with his friends, all wearing updated shirts and ties, the friend clearly sporting long hair, but not of the forties style.

The women, such as the blind date, Betty, at least wore something close to forties attire.

Thankfully the crucial moment in the station showed proper visual attributes.

Rich beyond words.

Sure, the acting, costumes, and set decoration may be only adequate, no better, but the story is nicely told and effective. Some people have contended that this tale gives a mixed message - - that the main character is rewarded by beauty after all - - but that is a misinterpretation. The story may be told (and seen) from the man's point of view, but the moral is presented by the young woman. She knew she was attractive, so she devised a way to avoid making her appearance the basis of any relationship. If the soldier was so shallow as to be interested in external beauty alone, he never would have known where to find her for their first meaningful visit. See it from the young woman's perspective, and this tale makes perfect sense. Recommended!