PAPERBACK ROMANCE

From the land of BALLROOM DANCING and MURIEL’S WEDDING, Australia, comes another off-beat comedy about love and relationships, called PAPERBACK ROMANCE. At times sexually explicit, it is a story about a woman’s insecurities over her own physical handicap and her desires for intimacy.

Sophie spends her evenings at the library composing romance novels filled with dashing heroes sexually fulfilling the heroines. As she composes, she speaks the words out loud, attracting the attention of a sophisticated jeweler, named Eddie (Anthony LaPaglia). Intrigued by her sexually explicit talk, Eddie asks Sophie out for a date, but Sophie refuses. After Eddie leaves, we discover that Sophie walks with a brace on one leg, the victim of polio which struck her as a child. Sophie, obviously, is embarrassed by her physical condition.

Sophie, however, is intrigued by Eddie and watches him from afar at a mall jewelry store, discovering that he has a blond bombshell of a fiancee named Gloria When Eddie and Gloria exit the store, Sophie tries to make an escape, but falls over a railing and breaks her polio-stricken leg. Emboldened by a less socially unacceptable leg support, a plaster cast, she speaks to Eddie and tells him it was a skiing accident. Eddie is excited by Sophie’s renewed interest, and he plans a secret island getaway for the both of them.

On the island, Eddie accidentally bites his tongue during a sexual encounter with Sophie, causing him to speak with a speech impediment. Gloria finds out about the weekend and becomes jealous, while Sophie finds out from a policeman that Eddie is a jewel thief. Sophie must decide to become honest with Eddie, just as he must be honest about his relationship with Gloria and his life as a criminal.

PAPERBACK ROMANCE is a clever, poignant human relations comedy that poses some very important questions about people recovering from physically debilitating ailments. It covers topics of self-respect, honesty and overcoming physical handicaps. Sophie yearns to be loved and accepted by Eddie, and she lies to ensure that love, but she knows that she must eventually be true to garner his true devotion. Likewise, Eddie knows he must turn from crime and from carrying on a false relationship with Gloria in order to win Sophie. These moral elements are punctuated by Christian prayers at a wedding and a “help me God” plea by Eddie.

These moral, sweet elements are severely flawed by the lustful romantic scenes and sexually suggestive words. At times, we hear Sophie speak the words of her novel, and the characters of her story are shown performing their sexual exploits. Another sad, immoral moment is that a morally upright policeman becomes attracted to Sophie, but she turns him down for her thieving, previously engaged man. Regrettably, this movie ends up being about a desperate woman who needs genuine love, but replaces it with sexual imitations.