The Princess Bride (1987; USA) is a romance and one of the best pictures ever made. But it is not the kind of romance that we nowadays think of, and we should rehabilitate the old term “romance.” For one thing, we would understand why this is such a powerful film. Today we define romance very narrowly as some kind of love relationship between two people. But The Princess Bride is a romance in the broader, richer, classic sense—with a great sense of humour as well.
A romance has a virtuous hero and a beautiful (and virtuous, of course) heroine who represent ideals, and there are always villains threatening their ascendancy. The hero starts off in an idyllic setting but then must go on a quest. There is death involved—the hero, villain, or both—and sometimes the hero comes back from his ritual death, saves the day, gets the girl, and the society is healthy and happy. William Goldman, who wrote the book and the screenplay, channels this archetypal story into The Princess Bride. Wesley, the farm boy (Cary Elwes), and Buttercup, the farmer’s daughter (Robin Wright Penn), live in an idyllic setting, slowly fall in love, but are torn apart as teenagers, Wesley vowing to always be there for Buttercup. But several years go by and the evil and talented Prince (Chris Sarandan) of the land has chosen beautiful Buttercup for his bride—only to have her kidnapped by three rascally guys. Wesley undertakes his quest to defeat the three—brilliant swordsman (Mandy Patinkin), mighty giant (Andre the Giant), and scheming genius (Wallace Shawn)—and survive the fire swamp, and rodents of unusual size . . . But the Prince captures Wesley and tortures him relentlessly in the Pit of Despair, leaving him apparently dead but actually “only almost dead.” It takes a miracle pill concocted by the old wizard Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) to revive Wesley—sort of—as he wobbles off to storm the castle with his two new friends, the brilliant swordsman and the mighty giant. Well, enough, you know how a classic romance ends.
Quite apart from Rob Reiner’s excellent direction, Mark Knopfler’s great soundtrack, and costumes that are so good you take them for granted as perfect for a fairy-tale world, The Prince Bride is comic—not in the one-liner, laugh-out-loud sense, but in the sense that everything is playful and done is good spirits. As an additional touch, the story is told as a story within a story, as a grandfather reads the book to his fidgety grandson who has a cold and has to stay in bed. The modern kid is sceptical, but he is promised that the book has a bit of everything, and he is slowly won over. Similarly, it is almost as if the writer Goldman is teasing us—he will interrupt the movie to remind us that it is just a story, and he will tell us a classic romance but make it tongue-in-cheek, yet we’ll be won over—and we are. Enjoy!