Have you read "Marry Him" yet?
If not, get reading! The controversial Atlantic Monthly cover story, subtitled "The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough," has just been optioned by Tobey Maguire's production company and could become a movie.
What's the gist?
In the story — which will also be expanded into a forthcoming book — author Lori Gottlieb writes that her experiences as a 40-year-old single woman (and single mother by choice) have led her to believe that rather than continue the seemingly endless search for Mr. Right, women should consider settling for the next decent guy who comes along. She writes:
Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go.
So, a movie, eh?
Yup, a movie — and I'm quite curious to see what Hollywood will do with this one. On the one hand, I could see it as an extremely conventional romantic comedy: Single woman resolves herself to marry the next OK-enough guy she meets, still has to go through a slew of schlubs, finally meets a good one, marries him — and ends up falling hopelessly in love after the fact, living happily ever after [insert eyeroll here]. It could also become a comedy in the Baby Mama mold, with the single mom searching for a guy who will just be a good father to her son — and, of course, discovering that they were always meant to be together. But the article is more complicated than that, and I'm curious to see if there's some kind of movie — heck, even a documentary — that would more accurately convey its points.
What do you think? Of all the possibilities, what do you think would be the best-case scenario for a movie version of "Marry Him"?














I agree with your skepticism - Hollywood will want it to ultimately end with 'and then they fell hopelessly in love and lived happily ever after.'
I just wonder if the fact that it is a smaller production company, headed by Maguire, will give it some shelter from those big studio 'lets get rid of the sad cancer' type choices (in this case, the realism where she's looking for a friend she can deal with and count on rather than a movie romance). Toby's production credits include 25th Hour (2002), Whatever We Do (2003), and Seabiscuit (2003)... and there seems to be some indie layering to him (life beyond Spiderman).
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