“We could watch Wreck-It Ralph again,” I told him as he scrolled through movies on my TV. He stopped on Braveheart and I knew where the conversation was going.
“We should watch Braveheart!” he said, predictably, like a kid.
The only thing I thought of when I heard of Braveheart was that glorious scene on The Office when Michael is on the roof and Darryl tells him it takes courage just to get out of bed knowing that Michael has to be himself. “You’re braver than me,” he says. Michael asks if it’s true and Darryl says, “Way braver! You’re Braveheart, man,” and Michael stares over the landscape of Scranton and says, “I am Braveheart.”
When I reiterated this to Samuel, he shook his head. “I hate that you know every quote ever.”
“You’re the one dating me.”
“Liz, let’s watch Braveheart.”
I let out an exasperated moan.
“Why don’t you want to?!” he asked.
“Because it’s a gladiator film! They’re all the same, guts and glory. I’m gonna dream about it all night, and I don’t do balls and chains.”
“What?”
“Someone always gets bludgeoned with a ball and chain. I don’t do balls and chains.”
(Now Kill Bill Vol. 1 is a different story and a different movie and we will get to that in another review.)
“But it’s so good! It was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. It’s such a good movie. You’ll like it, I promise.”
I sighed. “Alright, but we cool down with an episode of Frasier afterwards so I don’t have bloody scary dreams all night.”
“Deal.” We shook on it. After all, it was Mel Gibson (both in terms of starring and directing).
When the movie began, I wondered how I already knew the bagpipe tunes. And I don’t mean they were just familiar. I mean I knew every note and beat of the music. I rummaged through every file cabinet in my brain to figure out how I knew this music, and then it hit me.
“Wait! Braveheart!” I said, pointing at the screen. Samuel looked at me like I was having a stroke.
“This soundtrack comes on Downton Abbey radio all the time! My mom plays this around the house like every five minutes! She loves this soundtrack, this is one of her favorite movies! Wow, we really listened to this all the time when we made dinner.”
My brain flashed back to looking at the soundtrack name scroll by on the radio in my kitchen, and I recognized the name James Horner when it appeared on the screen. Suddenly, Braveheart got a lot more appealing.
After intentionally calling young William Wallace baby Anakin and getting it all out of my system, I started to get really invested in this movie. The music itself was gut wrenching (something about the bagpipes always is though, in my opinion. My Shakespeare teacher, Dr. Crawford, said something about people in the 1500s who uncontrollably wet their pants when they heard the bagpipes, so maybe people have thought that for centuries).
The scenery was beautiful. The Scottish Highlands are quickly making their way to the top of my list of places to visit. Something about the earthy feel and the leather shoes circa 1280 that the characters wore made me want to pack up and move off to some mountainous village on my horse and grow my produce in my backyard.
Mel Gibson’s co-star, Catherine McCormack, also added a nice touch to the scenery, Samuel thought. I am a completely heterosexual female, but I had to agree. She was stunning. The studly Mel Gibson as William Wallace, the charismatic leader of the Scottish rebels, wasn’t a bad addition to the movie either, though.
However, the beautiful scenery, earthy-toned colors and bagpipes, and swaying hair in the wind only lasted for a few minutes until, you guessed it, the bloody gut scenes. Some tyrant king’s men were bad, some good ole backwoods Scottish boys got mad and some riots were had. I’m not usually that much of a gore person (again, we will talk Kill Bill later). I have to have a reason for the madness, usually. But I felt like I got one here. The film snowballed, going from a quiet village life to a blood bath. I wasn’t mad about it though, because it was all choreographed well, and even if it wasn’t, I liked it. I liked the story that was there. Emphasis on the phrase “that was there” because there wasn’t much of one, I will admit, but it was enough for me. I bought it. I liked it and I didn’t want it to end.
Which was good, because the film was three hours long. However, it didn’t feel that long. Although, confession, at one point I did pause the movie to learn we were only 1.5 hours in when I thought we had to be close to the end because we were in the middle of quite a climax. When I realized we were halfway through and I had no idea what else was going to happen for the rest of the plot, I cried out all of the possible endings in my best Scottish accent before Samuel started laughing while simultaneously shoving his palm over my mouth. After we resumed, I learned I was wrong. There were some plot twists I admit I didn’t see coming. I turned to Sam, shocked.
“Am I going to be really upset at the end of this movie or am I going to be happy and content? Tell me now,” I said.
“Uhh, I had it wrong. I’ve never actually seen this movie, I was thinking of The Patriot.”
“You led me down this winding, scarring, emotional, blood-stained path for an hour only to tell me it’s the WRONG MOVIE?” I yelled loud enough to wake the neighbors.
He tossed his head back and laughed. “Are you saying it isn’t worth it?”
“No!” I hit play again.
After it was over, we both just sat there, staring at the screen, reveling in our emotions and bagpipes.
“Wow,” he said.
“Wow,” I said.
After what was either ten minutes or an hour of sitting there (we still really aren’t sure which, time seemed linear), he finally spoke. “I think I’m mad.”
“Well,” I said, scrolling on my phone. “Tell that to its 14 academy awards. And its 210 million.”
I was slightly surprised. Besides Mel Gibson, there wasn’t a whole lot of attraction to the film, but it obviously was enough.
The next day, Samuel and I were sitting at my dining table over a plate of leftover pizza.
“I’m still thinking about Braveheart,” I said for the fourth time that day. (Once at the end of the lane when we were swimming laps and completely out of breath, once in a traffic jam, another time in the grocery store and again over lunch.) I couldn’t shake the haunting music and the facial expressions of the girl, Murron, out of my head. It was following me around, tormenting me. It kept rolling around in my head, and for the life of me, it just wouldn’t die.
He laughed. “Now that you’ve had time to think about it, did you like it?”
I didn’t really know if I did the night before. I thought about my answer, and no matter what, I couldn’t get around yes. I loved it.
The thing about Braveheart was that it was exactly what I expected it to be. Yes, there were plot twists, but as far as an over-glorified gladiator guts and glory film goes, I was pleased. It was like, and I’ll say it again, Kill Bill. Too much blood done in an artistic matter? Yeah. Like 20 minutes of screentime spent on someone getting slashed? Definitely. Ball and chains? You betcha. Armed and screaming men through fields? Yep. But it was awesome. The story that was there in the beginning was enough for me. The characters weren’t super deep, complex beings that reflected myself, but is that really what you’re looking for in a gladiator epic? When you pick up Braveheart or see the cover on a whatever streaming device, do you expect to get some major poetic nuance out of it? No. You expect blood, romance, fights and armor, and that’s what you get and I loved it.
I was surprised about something I took away from it though, and it’s something that sticks in my head even now, a few days after I watched the movie. It made me wonder, how far am I willing to go for something I believe in? What am I willing to endure for my principles and my faith? At what lengths will I go to in order to stay my course and, if necessary, continue the course for the ones I love? And that’s the goal of a movie, isn’t it? To stick in the viewer’s head and keep resurrecting itself in their thoughts? If so, then that’s what Braveheart accomplished for me, so much so that even three episodes of Frasier couldn’t distract me from it. And I really don’t want them to.
Photo by Tamara Friesen
