This amusing fantasy about a love affair between an ordinary working New Yorker (Hanks) and a mermaid (Hannah) could have been made a generation ago by Walt Disney except for one marvelous -- and, in my opinion, highly artistic -- scene in which Daryl Hannah emerges from New York harbor wearing a pair of supernally beautiful legs and nothing else. Her naked buns, paragons of sensual grace in themselves, would probably have made old Walt think twice, although any normal man would want to jump on her and squeeze and bite them.
Hanks has met her by accident, literally, and she's everything a guy like Hanks could want. She seeks him out in New York, moves in with him, learns to speak and dress properly, loves him deeply (as only a mermaid can love deeply), and is a sexual dynamo. There is no anatomical difficulty with this since when she's out of the water, Hannah has those legs. It's only IN water, or splashed by it, that her piscatorial particulars reappear. Eugene Levy, as an ill-tempered and egomaniacal ichthyologist, feels there's something fishy about this stunning catch of the day. The movie is funny but Levy brings it to a loopy climax that the kids will love. The ending, though wistful, is basically a happy one. They have both learned what true love is. They have "gotten in touch with their feelings." (I love that phrase.) Ron Howard, the director, would never dream of having the audience leaving the theater without a glow.
Since it's intended to be a fantasy, we can skip the illogic of the plot. Well, not "illogic." Just an absence of logic. She learns to speak English in one afternoon just by watching television. Well, why not? Peter Sellars learned how to live by watching television a few years earlier. Still, one wonders where she learned to kiss so hungrily, fresh from the sea.
At any rate, most of the humor is of the "cute" variety rather than sophisticated and edgy. This is Ron Howard, not Billy Wilder. Hanks asks her name. She tells him in Ichthyese and it shatters every television screen in sight. So they stroll through the streets of the city and try to dream up a plausible English name for her. They reach Madison Avenue. "Madison!" Well, again, why not? Some of the scenes are worthy of chuckles as well as smiles. Taken to a fancy restaurant, she gets a lobster for dinner and eats the whole thing, shell and all, in an incident similar to one in Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness."
To truly enjoy this film requires an imagination more deft than the usual at the suspension of disbelief. You should be really good at it.
Hanks has met her by accident, literally, and she's everything a guy like Hanks could want. She seeks him out in New York, moves in with him, learns to speak and dress properly, loves him deeply (as only a mermaid can love deeply), and is a sexual dynamo. There is no anatomical difficulty with this since when she's out of the water, Hannah has those legs. It's only IN water, or splashed by it, that her piscatorial particulars reappear. Eugene Levy, as an ill-tempered and egomaniacal ichthyologist, feels there's something fishy about this stunning catch of the day. The movie is funny but Levy brings it to a loopy climax that the kids will love. The ending, though wistful, is basically a happy one. They have both learned what true love is. They have "gotten in touch with their feelings." (I love that phrase.) Ron Howard, the director, would never dream of having the audience leaving the theater without a glow.
Since it's intended to be a fantasy, we can skip the illogic of the plot. Well, not "illogic." Just an absence of logic. She learns to speak English in one afternoon just by watching television. Well, why not? Peter Sellars learned how to live by watching television a few years earlier. Still, one wonders where she learned to kiss so hungrily, fresh from the sea.
At any rate, most of the humor is of the "cute" variety rather than sophisticated and edgy. This is Ron Howard, not Billy Wilder. Hanks asks her name. She tells him in Ichthyese and it shatters every television screen in sight. So they stroll through the streets of the city and try to dream up a plausible English name for her. They reach Madison Avenue. "Madison!" Well, again, why not? Some of the scenes are worthy of chuckles as well as smiles. Taken to a fancy restaurant, she gets a lobster for dinner and eats the whole thing, shell and all, in an incident similar to one in Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness."
To truly enjoy this film requires an imagination more deft than the usual at the suspension of disbelief. You should be really good at it.