Rom-Com Rescue

Engaged to a Stranger in a Coma? Sure. Let’s Talk About While You Were Sleeping - 30 Year Anniversary

• Kira Sabin & Dr. Isabelle Morley • Season 2 • Episode 17

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Any takeaways from this episode?

Unrequited crushes. Questionable fiancés. Holiday hospital champagne. And one very comatose Peter Gallagher.

This week, we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of the 1995 rom-com While You Were Sleeping starring Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman (currently streaming on Disney+), and let’s just say—this movie has feelings. And fiancés. And furniture.

Kira Sabin (healthy dating educator + certified coach) and Dr. Isabel Morley (licensed couples therapist) dig deep into:

💍 Why this movie is built on a mountain of lies
🧠 What loneliness really does to our brains (and relationships)
💔 How fantasy and unrequited crushes keep us stuck
🛋️ Why Peter is basically Big and Jack is Aidan (Sex and the City parallels, anyone?)
🧃 And yes—we're side-eyeing that 90s hospital New Year's Eve party with alcohol flowing...

We ask the big questions:

  • Would you lie to a family because the grandma has a heart condition?
  • Why did every ‘90s rom-com end in a rushed proposal?
  • And seriously—why does no one feed the cat?

Plus, we rewrite the ending you deserve, call out rom-com tropes that need to go (looking at you, angry-truth monologues), and explore how media conditioned Gen X women to wait for someone else to rescue them.

Mic-drop truth? If you’re dating out of loneliness, you’re probably not building from love.
Hot take? Jack and Lucy needed therapy, not a wedding.
Love lesson? What starts in fantasy rarely grows into real intimacy.

📊 Stick around for Kira’s loneliness stats (spoiler: it’s officially an epidemic), and Isabel’s clinical breakdown of why Lucy needed way more than a boyfriend.

Come talk with us about your favorite rom-coms on instagram, tiktok, & youtube and Bluesky!

Get show notes, transcripts, and more information on at Rom-ComRescue.com

Izzy:

Unrequited crushes, lots of lies, comas, and so many fiances. That's right. This week we are breaking down 1995 Classic Romcom while you were sleeping for their 30th anniversary with Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman currently streaming on Disney plus.

Welcome to the Romcom Rescue Podcast, a brand new podcast where we bring the love and life lessons from your favorite romcoms. I'm Kira Sabin. I'm a healthy dating educator, a certified coach, and a positive psychology practitioner. But more importantly, I spend my days teaching the. Skills and mindsets of dating. And I'm Dr. Isabelle Morley. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and an EFT certified couples therapist, and I help couples have the happiest, healthiest relationship possible. Join us weekly as we break down the best love lessons from your favorite rom-coms so we can all get into the best relationships possible because we believe that we create our own happily ever afters.

Kira:

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back. We have got a great classic romcom today. One of us liked it more than the other. I feel like I say that every episode lately.

Izzy:

I know. I know.

Kira:

But I love that because we one of us keeps us on track and one of us shares the magic, right? The romcom magic. So, it's the 30th anniversary of while you were sleeping. I have, I know, I. know. That's like the haunting type of numbers i, in my head every day of how old I am. And I had not seen this movie in years. Let's get into this. What did you think? I don't think we need to give anybody the background that's been around for 30 years. If you haven't seen it, go watch it. If you haven't seen it in a while, go watch it.'cause of course we always do a deep dive into relationship dynamics and things like that. But of course, this movie's premise is semi crazy.

Izzy:

It's, I mean, it's concerning Kira, and I know this is great because once again, it's been a, I think it's been a few in a row that you've had the rom-com magic blinders on, and I have been like, what? This isn't okay, blah, blah, and I'm gonna be that person again for this movie because I had nostalgic feelings towards it and thought I was gonna be swept away by it. But. The level of deceit

Kira:

I know,

Izzy:

hard to get past. I'm worried about Lucy and the choices she's making. I can't believe Peter Gallagher, this huge famous actor now is asleep for the whole movie, which is just hilarious. I do wanna point out something very important, which is that. Peter and Jack, the two brothers of this film, obviously Peter's in a coma. Jack is awake and falling. For Lucy. They are straight up big and Aiden from Sex in the City,

Kira:

I see it. I see it for sure. I

Izzy:

Peter is big, fancy apartment. Good job.

Kira:

emotionally unavailable dating a married woman.

Izzy:

yes,

Kira:

Ashley, whatever, Bacon. because I always just remember'cause her name. Yes. exactly.'cause I remember'cause her last name's Bacon and,

Izzy:

furniture.

Kira:

Exactly. But it's, I still loved it.

Izzy:

Oh.

Kira:

still, I feel like the big, how I know how I felt is like at that end scene. Am I smiling goof just in the moment or am I like judging, you know, and going, yeah. Okay. And I was Smiling. goof. But I will say that. What we see less now that makes both you and I happy that we did not see here is everybody getting fucking married after two seconds. Why? Why in the nineties, in the 1990s are we seeing people getting married or getting engaged after knowing each other for like two to three weeks? How is that not crazy?

Izzy:

I, hold on. Something just clicked into place for

Kira:

Okay.

Izzy:

cause I have wondered this about why so many reality TV shows now have people getting married before they've met each other or after a week of dating each other. Is, is this the new way that we are doing the brief? Engagement, quick to marriage thing. Is it through reality TV and not through rom-coms anymore

Kira:

Maybe I love that rom-coms have.

Izzy:

grown?

Kira:

Mostly grown on that level. And it's interesting to see that reality TV we're like, let's throw people into this craziness and see what happens. That's, that's literally what we're doing. We're taking something as beautiful as love, as hard as building a healthy fucking relationship and shoving two. People on tv in a weird ass environment, usually with a lot of alcohol, right? So,

Izzy:

binding situation that is hard to get out of should you find yourself in the position of wanting to get out of it. It's crazy to do, and people in rom-coms definitely don't think about. What if we have to get divorced? Like they're just operating on that love high. And I feel like the same for reality tv. Everyone's this is exciting and this is so

Kira:

This is it. One of the things that my single ladies have really said years over, like just again and again and again, is that a lot of times they get sucked into the unhealthy or these ideas that love comes instantly and everything because they're like, when is it my turn? They see on romcoms, they see on reality shows like all these people who are crazy pants, getting in relationships, getting married and then, and I don't mean that these people are crazy pants, I'm saying the situations are crazy pants. And so I think that people are like when they meet somebody who is. Telling them that they love them, even though they don't know them, telling them they wanna spend the rest of their life with them. They're like, it's now

Izzy:

This is it. Mm-hmm.

Kira:

It's my turn. I've been waiting for it. It's, yeah. And that's how we get twin flames. Hell,

Izzy:

bombed into a bad situation.

Kira:

And we do not talk enough about how. Unpleasant, many marriages are, how hard it is to get out of them, how legally, everything else. And so, this is shitty, negligent behavior as far as I'm concerned in entertainment and media that we're so promoting bullshit like this. And I get it that a lot of people are entertained because they don't think that they would ever fall for this or get into this. And so they can make fun of others. And let me tell you, that's not true.

Izzy:

No it's not. No,

Kira:

That is not true at all. But you have some questions that that popped up for you from this very well thought out movie, so,

Izzy:

are. Some are serious and some are more serious. So lemme start off with, I.

Kira:

go for it.

Izzy:

What do you think you would do if you witnessed somebody fall on the rails?

Kira:

I hate to pull the age card, but 51-year-old Kira would not be jumping down and saving him. 25-year-old. Kira, I think we're supposed to get that she's maybe mid late twenties or something. Probably could have done that and I would've tried to save, although nobody else in that situation seemed worried or concerned

Izzy:

At all.

Kira:

at all.'cause there were other people around.

Izzy:

was like, oh, there she is on the rails with him.

Kira:

Yes.

Izzy:

Also, she was not worried enough. She was like, sir, excuse me, sir. Sir, can you, can you wake up? I think you have to immediately go to crisis mode, pulling him off the tracks. Don't try to like

Kira:

wake up. wake up. you're gonna die. We're both gonna put to die. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So I would like to think that a younger version of Kira would have some hero moves on her. Now my knees would not allow me to jump outta those tracks.

Izzy:

That's fair.

Kira:

And get up and move him and everything else. I'd be like, young man. Young man. I would like.

Izzy:

would delegate. That's

Kira:

I would lead the situation. So what about you? What about you?

Izzy:

In, in any crisis I've been in, what I've found that I do, and this is I don't control, this, is I just go, oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. And. I do take action. I don't know what it would be. I don't think I would jump down just because I would be like in my, oh my God, panic mode. I also am always nervous about the third rail. I don't really understand it. I don't, I don't know when it's there and when it's not there. I feel like I couldn't trust myself to not make things worse.

Kira:

I think that's fair and once again, this is a little bit of that rom-com magic that she like a five foot two woman. When there's other people around, other people working, there is the person who

Izzy:

The only

Kira:

in to save him and everything else. So.

Izzy:

It's a little rom-com magic that this rich guy is taking the train every day.

Kira:

It's yeah, maybe especially, it says it's Chicago and I'll tell you the L, which is the Chicago Light Rail, right? I'm like, it did not make a good showing in this.

Izzy:

No, he's getting robbed on Christmas Day.

Kira:

know, I know. So now I think of the s being, a kind of better part of Chicago, but during the eighties and nineties, because I've watched some movies recently where it's on there and I was like, Ooh, Chicago. As a mid-westerner, I feel always closest to Chicago as my city. So, yeah. I was like, this is not making Chicago look fantastic. Yes. Same with the hospital. I was like.

Izzy:

wait. Let me ask you a hospital question,

Kira:

Okay. Okay.

Izzy:

this happened, I was like, what? So, and this, I truly don't know. Were doctors and nurses allowed to drink in hospitals on holidays or whatever, because at New Year's we see them all in the background getting drunk, cheersing.

Kira:

I. It was the nineties. It was No, I'm just kidding. To me, probably, right? Like it's kind of like there are things that I even think about in the nineties, which doesn't feel that long ago, but is right. Yeah. exactly. Going to a restaurant and there's a smoking section and, that now seems crazy. and gross to me. But there was just a lot of kind of different things and yeah.

Izzy:

put, Kira. There were a lot of

Kira:

different I just think that drinking on the job was probably way more acceptable period. Whether they're doctors or nurses or whatever oh, we're just having a little nightcap,

Izzy:

Uhhuh,

Kira:

exactly. But I can think of lots of careers OR jobs in the nineties where we probably drank inappropriately, so. I will just say that that's probably not that far off. I feel like we would not see that in 2025.

Izzy:

I don't think so. It's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Kira:

It is for sure. Any other questions you could took Very well thought out made movie?

Izzy:

just one more, and this is the most serious one, so please just think about your response.

Kira:

I will. I am ready.

Izzy:

Would you want to live in Peter's apartment? You wouldn't wanna live in loosies. That's obvious, right?

Kira:

has such a classic, like my sister lived in an apartment just like hers in the nine, like it was so quintessential, like nineties Chicago. Everybody lived in kind of these like slight suburbs in these huge old apartment buildings with wood floors and everything else. So, out of the two of them, Peter's apartment is the better choice'cause it's probably downtown. We're probably talking Lincoln Park. Good view. He's got a cat that nobody seems to know or care about. Once again, I, I feel like us as the animal police in these movies, like when she like pulls out the can and she's uhoh, he has a cat that hasn't been fed for three days, I'm like. Now, and we learned it's Ashley Bartlett, Bacon's Cat. Just the same. Nobody seemed very concerned about this cat.

Izzy:

No,

Kira:

but

Izzy:

it was just a little weird. It was a sterile apartment, it

Kira:

it's not my vibe, but do I wanna live there for a couple of months?

Izzy:

Yeah, sure.

Kira:

Yeah, I

Izzy:

Thank you for your honest

Kira:

Yeah. Especially now, anything that I don't have to clean or and Right, like, to me it looked big. They probably had a cleaner come in once a week or whatever yeah, yeah, yeah,

Izzy:

my man. Mm-hmm.

Kira:

yeah. It's, it's. Let's get into the love lessons. Here's the deal. I am not going to say there were great love lessons in this. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend for a second that any of this made sense that there were good love lessons on any level. I just weirdly found it still charming and that it worked and at the end I wanted her and Jack to get together. And I feel like Bill Pullman, I just loved him in this. I don't think you did. I

Izzy:

we didn't,

Kira:

care.

Izzy:

and I like Bill Pullman, but I just, I didn't like his character. He was, he didn't trust her. He was suspicious as he should have been.

Kira:

should have been.

Izzy:

And then he's creeping on her and hitting on her when he does believe that she's the fiance of his comatose brother. It just, I, call me old fashioned. It just didn't quite work for me. I really

Kira:

Call me old fashioned. The lying and the

Izzy:

that,

Kira:

didn't work for me. Oh

Izzy:

well, as I wrote, which I think you pointed out my first love lesson sentences. Starting with a lie is not a good foundation for,

Kira:

Sound like a true couple's therapist right there. Absolutely, of course. And I now am blown away by the amount of movies that have been made. Then I've even watched in the last year that start on a huge lie of either their relationship status or their job or their, whatever it is. But I, okay, here is where the justification starts coming in. The weird part where it became slightly okay to me was that, yeah, okay. I'm really

Izzy:

You're hearing it?

Kira:

I'm, I'm, I'm, yeah, that it was, it's'cause of the grandmother, of course, who of course is the mother from Mary Poppins, which is

Izzy:

Oh, I know. Wait, why?'cause of her this, I can't wait to hear. Heart condition

Kira:

yes. Didn't wanna tell the truth because of the grandmother's heart condition and she might kill her in. The moment

Izzy:

Wow. I thought you were gonna say because of their family friend who did know, and it was his deceit, which was even worse. And she was just going along with him being the leader and being in

Kira:

do you think his deceit was was worse?

Izzy:

Yeah, because he had a relationship with the family and was deceiving them and he, he was playing God, right?

Kira:

Really was, and he was trying to be helpful and was zero helpful the whole entire time. He's I'll take care of this.

Izzy:

It walks away.

Kira:

yeah. She's you have not taken care of this whatsoever. No. That's the thing. Like for some reason, here's what it is. They tied it up enough in a little bit of a bow for me to not see as many plot holes I think. But of course this is ridiculous and I think that one of the things that you and I both talked about right away is Lucy is just lonely,

Izzy:

Ooh,

Kira:

right? She is. She's lost her father. Her mother died when she was younger. She is living a pretty lonely existence and. On some level I would never call it like stalking, but it's definitely unrequited crush on this guy. She's actually never talked to and just made up stories. So I actually think that if there is one, good love lesson is, we meet Peter and he is not that great of a guy.

Izzy:

Not much there

Kira:

a putts. He's a putz, I think is what he called him. He's and, even the whole squirrel thing. Right.

Izzy:

Oh.

Kira:

And so, yes. And so I do like the fact that she kind of emulated him. She made up in her mind like who this guy was and I think like a knight in like a businessman and knight in shining armor.

Izzy:

Mm-hmm.

Kira:

then we just realized he's a jerk and he is cheating with a married woman and he's pretty emotionally unavailable and not connected to his family at all.

Izzy:

How about, that? As a beginning point of they haven't even seen or talked to him. He is clearly not invested in what I would consider like the most meaningful relationships of like your family, maybe friends,

Kira:

would his mother not know that he lost a testicle? Let's get into real shit here. How would his own fucking mother not know that he had, because that had to have some kind of minor surgery or something. How would you probably not mention that to your family?

Izzy:

who helped him. Was it Ms. Bacon? Mrs. Bacon, who was there for him helping him in his recovery. Yeah. But that loneliness can make us, it can make us desperate. And it can make us idolize people and put them on a pedestal, which she does, which is not accurate. And it puts you in a very bad position to enter a healthy relationship because you will take anything or you will, you will look through bad behavior or signs, or

Kira:

crap.

Izzy:

You'll, yeah, and then you'll find yourself in a relationship but not a good one, in which case you can be even lonelier than you were before.

Kira:

And I think that that's true, and I've said that for years of my podcast of just being alone doesn't equal loneliness. You can be alone and have community and friends and being lonely as a whole other thing, and. I just happened to bring some statistics here because, I like to bring, I like to bring that shit. Especially not even since the nineties, but especially since social media and phones, loneliness is really a problem. And I always tell my clients that if you're dating out of loneliness, your results are not going to be out of love. Like the type of, like you just said, the type of behavior that you will be okay with that you'll accept. You know what, you will even choose like that. It's not going to turn into the relationship of your dreams. It's just not. And that a lot of women I do talk to say they were way lonelier in their marriages or in their relationships than they are single, and I, I think we have to remember that, because there's a lot of people in shitty, shitty fucking relationships and marriages. Because they're so scared to be alone. And we are here to tell you, like

Izzy:

okay to be alone.

Kira:

and community and in a beautiful, amazing life, and you might meet somebody who's a better match. But when we are lonely, the type of decisions we're making, they are all from fear. And what I say is that what starts in fear as a very hard time turning into love,

Izzy:

Yeah, and we see her stay in fantasy and imagine what it would be like for him to just propose to her out of nowhere when she does have friends. Like she's lost her parents. But your parents shouldn't be the only people in your life when maybe when you're a kid, even as a kid, you should still have friends and other people, other whatever, right? Family. She has friends that she's not invested into. She hasn't built up those relationships. Eventually she is right, tells'em the truth of what's happening, but there's ways in which she could not be lonely and she chooses to stay in this fantasy and make that her, her way of alleviating the loneliness. And that's how she finds herself caught in this crazy lie and acting like the fiance to a comatose man that she has never spoken to.

Kira:

That she has never even spoken to. She is continually lying to his whole entire family

Izzy:

Mm-hmm.

Kira:

and yeah.

Izzy:

his brother.

Kira:

And falling for his brother. So I'm gonna just give a couple of stats here. So, number one, because of they blame a lot of this on social media and technology. 61% of US adults report feeling lonely, at least some of the time. That sucks. 61%. So men at 63 and women are 59. And to me that's very new because women have always had just because of. Being oppressed. We have had a tighter community. Women have been there for each other in a way that men are not usually there for each other. And it's heartbreaking to me to hear that 59% of women feel lonely as well as it is about men, but I'm just saying what I'm saying. And one in three adults worldwide. Say that feel either very or fairly lonely on a regular basis. So this is a global issue. and I think I've mentioned on here before that I think China and England and multiple countries have hired a minister of loneliness to start working on turning this. around because.

Izzy:

Loneliness kills.

Kira:

Loneliness not only is bad, it kills, it's actually feeling lonely as just as bad as smoking two packs of cigarettes

Izzy:

Yes, I know. Now there's a loneliness epidemic that is, has physical health consequences. Yeah.

Kira:

And the saddest thing I think I've heard is that 75% of Gen Z adults, which are 18 to 24, feel lonely. So they are more than ever, and it's because.

Izzy:

They're not connecting the ways that are, that are meaningful, right? Because, oh God, social media, the internet.

Kira:

the internet and the, and phones. And ultimately one of the things that I learned in,'cause I've done an extensive amount of research on online dating, and one of the things that I've realized is it creates fae intimacy. So texting creates foe and we, we feel safe because we could erase things but actually it doesn't create the intimacy we think that it's creating and. It just leads us down bad path. I'm always here to, how do we actually get to love? And that's not it. By real life. You can't edit every single thing that you say. You can't, only come up with a funny response. and I. I think it's really pushed us into a place of perfectionism, a place of all of these things which push out love. So, it was, you mentioned this first and then as soon as I started watching this, just going, gosh, she's so lonely. There's no way that this is probably gonna turn out in her favor because of that. And and just here is the other thing I really wanna point out quickly. That really stood out and. I might wanna even do an episode about this, but what I think was okay in 1995 for her character, she was so passive in her own life. It was, she was completely unintentional.

Izzy:

Whatever happens. Mm-hmm.

Kira:

Junior just comes in completely un boundaried. She, besides get out but she never really, you know, sets true boundaries with him. Like she is.

Izzy:

She responds. She never

Kira:

Reacts or responds. She is, She has a crush on this guy. She's never talked to. Her father died, we hear the story of, she had to leave school because of her dad getting sick, but she could be going back to school. She is stuck. She is stuck. But she is young, she is viral. She, She, shouldn't be. And that's what I think, I. Did not like to see is how unintentional she was. The whole entire movie. Like she just kept thinking life was happening to her. And I'm like, no, you are creating this by not speaking up, by ignoring things you shouldn't be ignoring. Not just the lies, but her whole entire existence in this movie is just her going along with everybody else and hoping it works out okay. And that is the opposite of what I believe at this point.

Izzy:

Yeah, I agree. And like at the very end we see that kind of turnaround, but not entirely because of her or on her terms. Like she's definitely not in charge of her life. And I think the best example is even when Peter wakes up, and there's not a genuine connection there and she still rushes into almost getting married to him and it just feels like she just is not, she's not the one leading her story.

Kira:

Absolutely. Like you're the here in your story, man. You gotta save yourself because when she says. Who is it? Her? My favorite character is her boss. That's my, he's the only one with

Izzy:

like him.

Kira:

He is wait, which one is this? Wait, what's going on? And she says to him something along the lines of, listen, I'm like lonely. I live with my cat. A good looking rich man wants to marry me. Why wouldn't I do it? I was like, really?

Izzy:

Uh, What's that value? Rich and good looking. That's enough to. Almost,

Kira:

And I, and I don't know if that's 1995 or romcom writing, but like it made me feel, blah, it made me feel

Izzy:

Icky. Mm-hmm.

Kira:

and I just started thinking about. Different female characters of some of the nineties movies that we've been watching, like Maggie and Runaway Bride, like Meg Ryan's character, and you've got Male and they're all like

Izzy:

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting.

Kira:

And I'm like, is this an episode or something? Because it also makes me know. That I was full on unbelief. So whether we wanna believe that I, I learned this from media or whatever that for, myself to get love. I believed in the nineties, I needed to stay quiet. I needed to let things happen to me. I needed somebody to choose me to direct my life a little bit. You know what I mean? Like I really, and I don't know if we wanna call it saving, but I really.

Izzy:

way of letting someone be, be the man in the relationship. Not, don't take up too much space.

Kira:

Which, by the way, if you're now listening to this and going, well, I do think that's true. It's not. 17 years right here. How many are you in? Like 10. So listen to us. That's not it. You are going in with an instant power problem, power struggle that you may never recover. So I understand that we wanna feel like our spouse or partner is strong and whatever strength looks a lot of different ways my friends and. It's, it's not in manliness and macho. And it's not in saving because the minute that somebody comes in and saves you, guess what they think you owe them.

Izzy:

Everything.

Kira:

Yep.

Izzy:

It's, yeah, we rescue ourselves.

Kira:

Mic drop.

Izzy:

Lemme say one more thing about

Kira:

Yes. Yes.

Izzy:

I'm gonna go on a different topic though, if you wanna keep going on this. Okay. Here's another thing from nineties rom-coms that I can go ahead and skip. I'm, but we still see, to this day, we still see this in so many rom-coms. I can do without the angry, honest rant where the two main characters point out each other's deepest fears and flaws and sensitivities and what's holding them back from living their life in this sort of harsh, almost accusatory way, but like to help them see themselves more clearly. And then they. Forgive each other and move on from that as if it wasn't the most painful thing you could hear from somebody that you felt close to. And I just want

Kira:

barely know,

Izzy:

that you barely know

Kira:

that you barely

Izzy:

either way, but like everyone listening. Don't do that to people you barely know. To people you know very well. If you wanna give feedback, do it in a kind, compassionate way. It should never be in this sort of angry. Well, I'm gonna make you look in the mirror and it's for your own good kind of

Kira:

here's a laundry list of everything that you do wrong, right?

Izzy:

welcome.

Kira:

Yes, exactly. How does that create love? How does that create trust? How does that create respect and appreciation that keeps relationships going? It doesn't And I even have, like, when I do tough conversations, I'm like, bring one thing I. Don't bring six things. Don't make this the every six months. You just bring all the things that you're frustrated about your relationship. No. You bring one thing that's important enough to talk about and you need to be heard or there's no point of the conversation. I think that's such a great point, and I am so happy you brought it up. It was genius as always. Thank you, Dr. Izzy.

Izzy:

thank you so much. Thank you for that validation.

Kira:

If they were our clients think we're not ridiculous, if they were our clients what would you do? What would you say?

Izzy:

I think Lucy, we don't know Peter well enough to do anything with him. I think Lucy needs to take a good look at her life and figure out why she has retreated from it. How she can reengage with being the one in charge with taking action. What are her goals? What are her values? Does she just want a rich guy to pay for her life? Does she wanna go back to school? Who the heck is she? And she obviously has some grief to do. She lost both her parents early and painful ways. I'm sure attaching to people feels scary and that's probably why she lives in fantasy. That's a very safe way to attach to people in your imagination. So working through what I'm sure attachment, fears and wounds, and I, I feel like she's got a good chunk of work to do before I'd actually want to see her get married to Jack.

Kira:

A hundred percent. To me, I would want her getting clear on who she actually is. Really. Oh man. I hate when I have to see

Izzy:

Uh Oh. Uh Oh.

Kira:

I mean, Really, if we think about it, besides, I do think their chemistry was really good in this. I do.

Izzy:

They were cute

Kira:

and I loved, and I do love that some of the scenes where, they're outside sliding on the ice. And as two northerners, we fully get that right. Absolutely. Yes, yes. And They had fun and they laughed. But Jack was also like, I mean there was some weird like overhearing, like the whole pregnancy. Not he didn't, but her sis, the sister did. And then he overheard the whole like, Joe Junior, and I'm just kind of like, oh.

Izzy:

Grow up guys.

Kira:

I know we're like, can we all just grow up a little and have real conversations and just ask? But I needed both Lucy and Jack to get their own shit in line before they even think about building anything, because really they've known each other for two to three weeks and there's some chemistry there, but that's it.

Izzy:

built on a lie. I'll just say that again. You, do you think, do you think his, Jack and Peter's family are just gonna, I forgive her for lying

Kira:

supposed to believe it when they all show up To

Izzy:

To support. Yeah. Yeah. I,

Kira:

end.

Izzy:

Which is a cute seed and I will grant you that. It is very cute.

Kira:

Like I said, they tied this up for me enough that I can believe it. Where if we didn't see the family ever again, I would be like, good luck with Christmas. Is they all is there all oh yes we do remember you. You said that you were engaged to her, our son who was at a coma and we're,

Izzy:

we let you into our family.

Kira:

And the thing is, is that I realized not to go back to this, that Lucy was lonely, but that was never okay enough for a, a lie like that it worked out well'cause of rom-com magic, but that could have ended up hurting a lot of people that could have, it just, it could have broken trust it's, it's not the way to do things, people, it's not the way to do things

Izzy:

And I'm pretty sure that nurse was legally obligated to Kick her out of the room once she realized she was not actually the fiance. But once again, the nurse was probably drunk as far as we know. There was no rules back then. So

Kira:

I love how we talk about the 1990s, like it's the 1920s now. You know what I mean? Just like Right. Exactly. Oh my gosh. My new goal for the future is to have a generation where we don't have to say, well, you know, it was different times, right? Like, I'd like us to be healed enough. As a society nowhere near right now, but I would like us to be healed enough to be able to not look back and just constantly justify. Really terrible crap and crappy behavior and Right, because, well, it was just different back then. We can say it was different, but we can also say it was shitty. And I will say why I think I liked Jack's character is it didn't ever feel like he was taking advantage. He, I don't know why it didn't feel, he feel, felt like a good match for her pace, but it wasn't Okay.

Izzy:

No, I, no, it wasn't.

Kira:

Will they make it?

Izzy:

What do you think? Kira? How about you tell me your idea of if they're gonna make it or not?

Kira:

Well, clearly through Romcom Magic they

Izzy:

They do.

Kira:

And even though they've only known each other for a few weeks, and instead of just saying, I

Izzy:

we date?

Kira:

right, let's date.

Izzy:

No. No. He

Kira:

because not, I guess in 1995, like we don't date, we just, We get engaged or something. So that part to me always drives me crazy. That's driven me crazy for years. Like, why would we think that that's okay? Like, why would he just not say I do have feelings for you and I feel there's a connection there, and will you go on a date with me? Let's see where this goes. And then I feel in if it was now 2025, they would do like a two years ahead at the Christmas. She's with Jack. Maybe Peter now has a nice relationship or something, whatever. And like things aren't like, that's what I think would happen now is they would do that bump. Because they do that a lot. Exactly. So what about you? Do you think that, do you think that. The two weeks that they've known each other that she lied through the whole time was enough for beautiful love and healthy relationship.

Izzy:

I can hear your sarcasm, but Kira, if you're a soulmate, you, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You can make it through anything. If you are soulmates, it doesn't matter. No, I

Kira:

What if, what if somebody ever clipped that from our podcast?

Izzy:

I just said, Isabel said, if we're soulmates,

Kira:

Then we're okay. Yes, exactly. Oh my gosh.

Izzy:

I, in no world do I think anyone is getting over that level of deceit and you can be it, I don't care how doe-eyed she is about it. And like I was lonely. I felt caught, I was told to keep going with it, but I don't think anyone can or should forgive her ultimately. For that also.'cause she doesn't like really take responsibility. I don't see her like really own up to it in, in the way that I would need her to. So I think they get engaged. They date, everyone realizes the extent of her lying. And then they, they break up and she has to figure herself out. That's what I think.

Kira:

And to me. Ready for it? Oh man. I'm really controversial. I mean, That's the gift, right? Is they break up and she gets to figure herself out. That to me is probably the best rom commenting on some level for, at least when some of our characters are. Just not ready And this looking at her and her life and you've said this a thousand times, I've said this a thousand times, like if you are not happy single, just'cause you get in a relationship, it doesn't mean that all of a sudden you're going to be happy. You still show up, your shit still shows up. The stuff that Danny and I fight about are like. External things, But my shit still still shows up. I gotta take care of me. You know? That's not his job And

Izzy:

And I think she was like looking to avoid that work. She's the kind of person who would like, get in the relationship and not then self-examine and figure out why she lied. Like she was looking to just not have to do that stuff. So.

Kira:

I feel like she had oddly given up a little bit, right? It's Chicago. There are millions of jobs. Millions of jobs. And she's working in a cold ass booth

Izzy:

Where

Kira:

at, it in an unsafe area. It just, it, it feels like she just gave up and

Izzy:

She quiet quit her life.

Kira:

and. We didn't see that growth really. We didn't see besides her that nice scene where she says to the family, she says the nice scene to the family. Like I, I, she goes, I fell for you. And then the dad, who's the dad for everybody loves Raymond. Later, Peter, somebody, I'm forgetting his name right now. But he goes, wait, you fell in love with me. She goes, no, but all of you. And I understand that she wanted a family, but that's not enough reason to lie to somebody. That's not enough reason to take advantage on some level of people because she did.'cause they didn't have the same information as she did.

Izzy:

Exactly, and you know what

Kira:

out of the

Izzy:

I know, whereas I don't, I I give this to you. I hear you. If we had seen her. Apply to school and start taking classes again. If we had seen her, make a bigger effort with her friends and really try to build up those relationships, I think that I would feel better about the ending.'cause it would show that she had done that self-growth, not attached to a relationship.

Kira:

What's our rewrite? I feel like the rewrite is,

Izzy:

She goes back to school.

Kira:

she leaves like after, after like the Peter thing comes out and she's I've, and says to the whole family and apologized to Jack and she kind of, she leaves, right? I would've loved to see her for the

Izzy:

A montage.

Kira:

Get her shit together, right? Get back in school working towards things that she's interested and love having friends, having community like, you know.

Izzy:

with people, with her

Kira:

Exactly. And then, after some time if Jack shows up and says, I'm still thinking about you. Do we wanna date?

Izzy:

Better than that, she goes to Jack's furniture store, which he opened after leaving the family business. And she says, listen, I still have feelings for you. Will you go on a date with me?'cause that would be her and the

Kira:

It is her grand gesture. You're right. See I nineties that

Izzy:

man. Kira, you are just, well, this movie,

Kira:

it's so

Izzy:

really just love the nostalgic. Yeah.

Kira:

is.'cause like I was like, I just nineties that because yeah, it's her grand gesture to make, right. It's her

Izzy:

out there. Mm-hmm.

Kira:

know, and so yeah, we just wrote a way better movie that probably nobody wants to watch, but hey.

Izzy:

People wanna watch that. I think

Kira:

Yeah, because, I always think that,

Izzy:

mm-hmm.

Kira:

blonde isn't a rom-com really, because honestly, the relationship between her and Luke, what's his name right now, is minor, right? But why we all love that movie is at the end, she finds herself, she finds her confidence, she starts finding her worth and who she is. And I just, why is that happening in 2001 and not happening in 2025 as much? And just things like that. So Yeah. we really just shoved this character, Lucy, into all of the nineties tropes and,

Izzy:

but it still worked for you?

Kira:

It still worked for me. It did. And I just, and Bill Pullman had that nineties hair. I love so much that little bit longer He did. It was so cute. And I wonder if there's even like a Midwestern thing I'm tied to here. Although they mocked Wisconsin in the first three minutes. I, it's the first thing I wrote down. I'm like making fun of my state in the first three minutes. Rude,

Izzy:

but you moved past

Kira:

I moved, I guess I clearly moved past it. I did think that they also nailed his family a little bit for a pretty quintessential Midwestern family. Yes, exactly. Can I feed you? Take your, you know what I mean? Like, because they would, they would say, come join us. Come to our Christmas, come to that is how well we can be sweet and also passive aggressive, so.

Izzy:

Yeah. Well,

Kira:

I do have some really good trivia behind the curtain stuff, and most of it, most of it is there were a lot of people tied to this movie before, before

Izzy:

got cast. Okay.

Kira:

ton of people. So it was written for Demi Moore.

Izzy:

What.

Kira:

I know and at one point Patrick Swayze was brought up'cause they had just had a huge hit, ghost

Izzy:

Oh,

Kira:

Demi Moore. So they were talking Patrick Swayze about bringing them back together. Nicole Kidman auditioned to play Lucy.

Izzy:

Okay. I could see that.

Kira:

This was also brought to as a completely different feeling. Harrison Ford and Gina Davis.

Izzy:

Whoa. Different.

Kira:

know, and then an unknown. Matthew McConaughey also tested for this, the role of Jack,

Izzy:

Jack.

Kira:

but was dropped because of his accent.'cause they decided to throw it into Chicago. And then the director rejected offers to cast Russell Crow also in it.

Izzy:

Well, they had their pick, huh? They really,

Kira:

really, really did. And I also, I mean there's a whole list of people who were considered yeah, those are the main ones. But Sandra Bullock ended up taking the role saying she could really relate to it. She had just broken up from a four year relationship. I don't know if you know who this is, Tate Donovan. And he actually went on then to date Jennifer Aniston before she was dating. Brad Pitt. so very nineties celebrity stuff, but she and t Donovan were in the movie Love Potion number nine, which is one of

Izzy:

Oh

Kira:

Do you know that movie?

Izzy:

yes. Should we do that one?

Kira:

Oh we maybe should Guys tell us if Love Potion number nine. and'cause I delightfully love that movie. I've seen it many times

Izzy:

love that

Kira:

I do too. That's Tate Donovan and they met there and dated for four years, and she has said multiple times that he, I don't know if she would say that now, but in, in the past she said that he was the love of her life.

Izzy:

oh,

Kira:

which is hard, but I know that she's also recently lost, I think, a partner which super

Izzy:

Oh God.

Kira:

So, and then here's the other piece of trivia, which I think you and I are fully gonna agree with, is the original screenplay was about a woman in a coma and a man pretending to be her fiance, but I

Izzy:

Ooh.

Kira:

So this is good. Actually, many studio executives thought that this would be too predatory. Suggested reversing the roles. So once it was rewritten, then it got picked up. But

Izzy:

That's so funny, Kira.'cause I was thinking earlier in this, when we were talking about things to say if the genders were reversed, we would be so clearly outraged by what was happening. And if it was a sister flirting with the supposed fiance, we would be like, this is so fucked up. But it's how we just, we like allow things for different genders in a way that we shouldn't. That's interesting. Well, at least they have that level of insight

Kira:

I'm

Izzy:

in 1995.

Kira:

you the truth in 1995,'cause we've seen a lot of questionable movies come out since then. But yeah. So what are our tacos? What did you give it?

Izzy:

Listen. Listen. I gave it a three overall because I enjoyed it and I did get a little butterflies at the end when he puts the ring in for, and when she says you have to pay before you come through. I thought that was, so I gave it a three overall. I gave it a one for the love lessons, which I think is fair.

Kira:

I think it's totally fair. I think it's totally fair.

Izzy:

What about you? Five and five.

Kira:

No, no, no, no. I'm not that blind to this. Overall I would say four. It's not, it's not, I really enjoyed it. It does hit a nostalgia note. It weirdly held up for me, like Nicely. There was no glaring. Racist, homophobic stuff. I, I hate to say it, but that honestly shows up a lot in nineties movie. It makes me uncomfortable. But the love lessons were zero. Like basically one, I can't, you're right. Like I could not give it to them. There's not a lot there. I love the chemistry between the two of them. I think Bill Pullman was a really, I wish that this would've start launched a, a romcom career for him personally.'cause I think he would've done. He was in a couple more, I think there he was in one called Mr. Wrong? I don't, he was in a couple that never really made it anywhere, but I, I did like him in this and I thought their chemistry was really good. I really bought into it. I don't know.

Izzy:

Yeah. That's

Kira:

Nostalgia, man, it's,

Izzy:

I know it's powerful force.

Kira:

It really is. All right, guys. That's a wrap on this episode of Romcom Rescue. We laughed, we analyzed, we've uncovered the real life love lessons or lack thereof of this movie.

Izzy:

Now it's your turn. Tell us what you think. Was this romcom relationship goals or a total disaster Vote in our Instagram polls and DM us your hot takes.

Kira:

And make sure you follow, subscribe, and leave a review. If you love what we do, I am putting a ton more clips up on Instagram, so make sure you're following us there if you wanna see our beautiful spaces giving very, very important one minute thoughts. So it helps us, bring us more romcom magic and real talk your way because at the end of the day.

Izzy:

We believe that we create our own happily ever afters and remember. We rescue ourselves. Hooray. Beautiful.

People on this episode

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Dr. Isabelle Morley

Host
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Kira Sabin

Host