It doesn’t happen as much any more. With the Internet, with the Hollywood marketing machine, with so much information out there about everything, it is so rare to encounter something that we know absolutely nothing about. But that wasn’t always the case. There was a time, in the age of “television,” when you could randomly turn on the tube and find your next favorite film. And let me tell you, there is nothing quite like stumbling onto a film that you’d never heard of and finding it to be an absolute gem. Movies like Sylvester Stallone’s Oscar, Samuel L. Jackson’s Red Violin, or Bruce Willis’ Hudson Hawk, Tarsem Singh’s The Fall, or Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch. These are all films that I consider some of my personal favourites, and are all films that I stumbled on to while watching TV. Roxanne was another one of those movies.
No, it’s got nothing to do with The Police song from 1978. I’m talking about the 1987 classic Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah romantic comedy Roxanne. Based on Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac, Roxanne tells the story of a small town fire chief who falls in love with a beautiful astronomy student who moves to town for the summer. Roxanne has all the mistaken identity hijinks that you would want from an 80’s retelling of an 1897 play. With the added bonus of having Steve Martin in it.
Roxanne is a good, heartfelt, sweet-natured movie about not judging people by what they look like, but by who they are as a person. Steve Martin’s Pinocchio-nosed fire chief is played with so much confidence and wit that you can’t help but fall in love with him. He knows he has a big nose, but all in all, he’s fine with it. Roxanne is a story so full of great dialogue and witty banter that it really does warm the heart.
You know what genre of movies Hollywood doesn’t make anymore? (No, not romantic comedies, they actually make quite a few of those. Just not many good ones.) The movie Hollywood has stopped making is the “modern retelling” movie. I’m not talking about Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. I’m talking about the Hollywood movie where they take a classic piece of fiction, and retell it in a modern way. Think the TV series Empire (King Lear), or 10 Things I Hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew), or Clueless (Emma).
There might be an argument for how these movies may not travel as well anymore, or that there just isn’t an audience for them. But Roxanne made 40 million dollars from an estimated 12 million dollar budget in 1987. Adjusted for inflation, that would be a 101 million dollars against an estimated budget of 32 million dollars. Surely that’s worth it if it brings people this much joy.
Follow Us