★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

There’s not much to say about this 90s rom-com staple. For those who haven’t watched There’s Something About Mary in the last ten years, you might look back on this film with fondness. If you have experienced a more recent viewing, it’s pretty clear that Mary is little more than a flimsy house of cards made up of stereotypes, tropes, and disconnected plot points. A single gust of reason is enough to send this whole thing collapsing.

Obviously when it comes to looking at films from decades ago, we review them with a grain of salt. We know something made in 1998 will not stand up when held to 2021’s standards. But even for the time period Mary is undoubtedly questionable. The film itself acknowledges that the main characters are stalkers yet there’s little consequence for these actions and essentially no self-awareness or reflection from our leading men. Comparing Mary to Legally Blonde, a film released just three years later, makes it all the more clear that women being respected and taken seriously was not an outrageous idea for the time; it just depended on who was telling the story.

Check out our (slightly more) in depth podcast review + rating below! Podcast music by Brian K.S. Cole.

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