THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Like the famed 1939 WIZARD OF OZ and the not-so-famous THREE WORLDS OF GULLIVER, THE PRINCESS BRIDE takes the form of an imaginary narrative framed by its real-world tellers, though the first two are dreams while BRIDE is a "figment," by which I mean a fictional story-within-a-framing-fictional story. In addition, while there's no intrinsic reason that BRIDE couldn't have as much marvelous fantasy-content as WIZARD and GULLIVER, apparently source-author William Goldman (whose book I've not read) desired to keep his salute to fairy tales very close to naturalistic models. Only a few elements, such as some of the world's monstrous denizens, could be deemed as marvelous even if the "inner narrative" weren't framed as an imaginary sequence within a naturalistic cosmos.

Because BRIDE has become a cult film since its 1987 release, it would be egregious to examine the film in terms of plot-points. The frame takes the form of a grandfather (Peter Falk) reading the story of the Princess Bride to his sick grandson (Fred Savage). The script plays with this conceit more than other movies using a similar frame-device, in that a few times toward the opening, either Falk or Savage interrupts the narrative. Strangely, though, these break-ins put an added emphasis that BRIDE is going to be a "happy ending" story, and this actually adds to its persuasiveness rather than detracting. For me at least, once the film called attention to its own artifice, I felt the film's use of tropes from romances and adventures became even more persuasive, rather than less so.

As the title suggests, BRIDE is about the romancing of its female lead Buttercup (Robin Wright, whose character is only a "princess" in a figurative sense late in the film, when she's engaged to marry a prince). Long before the engagement, Buttercup falls in love with farmhand Westley (Cary Elwes) and they plan to be married. Westley is subsequently lost at sea, and after the passing of five years, the still-grieving Buttercup consents to marry local prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon), purely because it doesn't matter to her what the rest of her life is like without Westley. Outlaws Vizzini, Fezzik and Inigo (Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant and Mandy Patinkin) kidnap Buttercup for unknown reasons, and a mysterious masked man, possibly the Dread Pirate Roberts, intervenes to liberate the young woman. The athletic masked adventurer bests all three outlaws, either with wit or with fighting-skill. When the pirate takes custody of Buttercup, he rails at her for her coming marriage-- which foreshadows the revelation that he's actually Westley.

Humperdinck and his men capture both young lovers. The prince eventually reveals that he has no interest in marrying Buttercup, but has an involved political reason for having had her kidnapped. The fortunes of Buttercup and Westley are almost at their lowest, but Westley made a good impression on the outlaws Fezzik and Inigo, who come to the couple's rescue.

I would guess that Goldman wanted to follow the general outline of a romantic fairy tale while slighting undermining its plot with his focus on oddball characters-- Fezzik, Miracle Max (who revives Westley from near-death) and, most of all, Inigo Montoya. Inigo has spent his life in quest of the man who killed his father. Inigo's conflict, though not without humor, comes close to usurping the centrality of the Westley-Buttercup plot. Indeed, even though Westley demonstrated superior skills in the mode of an Errol Flynn adventure, he sits out the conclusion, and Inigo gets the big swordfight with his enemy-- which is rather like having a Robin Hood adventure wherein Little John gets the climactic battle. Still, since Inigo has more or less pledged his fealty to Westley's cause, I would argue that Inigo's triumph is also that of Westley and Buttercup.

BRIDE fully deserves its favored status as a cult film. Its only flaw in my eyes is the overly goofy sequence involving Miracle Max and his wife (Billy Crystal and Carol Kane). For me, the film stops dead while they're on the screen. But everything else works so well, they're easy to forget.