Splendour in the Grass

Man that film kills me. I sometimes think it's so much about us it almost physically hurts me to watch it ' which of course means I do, in the often frequent, often fleeting, moments I want to wallow. It was made back in the sixties, and it stars Natalie Wood (James Dean's girlfriend in Rebel Without a Cause) and Warren Beatty in what I think was his first starring role.

I saw my ex the other day and she called me "one of the most dramatic people she knew, which is a little over-stated and dramatic itself, although she has a point in some ways. Because Splendour in the Grass is nothing like us really. We didn't meet at high school for a start, and I was never a massively popular jock-type, though violently sensitive, bloke who looks like Warren Beatty when I was at school, and she, despite being a highly attractive girl all-in-all, is nothing like as beautiful, or as chaste, as Natalie Wood is in the film. These are film stars after all ' anyone who thinks Bonnie and Clyde or Butch and Sundance looked as good as their film-star counterparts in real life are even more affected by Hollywood glitz than me.

Other things that are completely different (and there are many, I know) include the fact that I never had a very domineering father, certainly not to the extent that my father made me live the life he couldn't like Warren's dad does to him, and there certainly wasn't the sexual frustration, which is probably the main point of the film in the first place. Old Natalie and Warren are worried about sleeping together unmarried, that's the major problem they have. The film is set in 1928 and I suppose that sort of thing bothered people more back then than it does now. Natalie and Warren want to get married but things keep getting in the way ' Warren's dad being a major factor. He doesn't want his son giving up an education and career over some silly girl. He can tell Warren is gasping to sleep with Natalie, but tells him there are "other girls who can take his mind off that in the short term, until he's been away, got educated, and can take over the family business, which is oil.

Once all that is done, he's perfectly happy for Warren to marry Natalie. Warren doesn't want to let his dad down, although the rest of this stuff eats him up inside. Being kids and being hormonal, and having no way to resolve this consummation problem to the satisfaction of all parties (Natalie's mum in particular wants her little girl to remain "unspoiled) pretty much drives them round the bend, quite literally in Natalie's case, especially when she finds out Warren has slept with another girl who is one of those "other girls after he broke up with her to appease his dad. She ends up in a mental home soon after this, and I'd love to draw comparisons here between the film and real life, but that would be far too easy, and I'm not nearly that crass.

So, of course, when I think about it all properly, the film really is nothing like us in any way and I am being a bit melodramatic about it all. All apart from one thing, the end. And don't worry about me spoiling it as I've tried high and low to buy the video or DVD, an exercise in futility if ever there was one, and it'll probably be so long until it comes back on telly that you'll have forgotten what I'm about to tell you now anyway.

At the end Natalie comes out of the mental institute all better, except she can't stop thinking about Warren. She has met another guy in the hospital and she really likes him, but it's not the same ' it's good, but she doesn't have quite the same feeling she did about Warren. Her friends try and lie to her, as does her mum, about knowing where Warren is, but her dad, in a moment of father-daughter clarity lacking in most of the rest of the film, lets it out of the bag where he is. She goes to see him, not knowing he's married a girl he met when he was away at uni (where, as we know, he only went because of his dad in the first place). Warren's wife is really nice too, but at the end of the day, she just isn't Natalie. Even worse though, not only is he married, he's got a little kid and his wife is heavily pregnant with their second child. His wife is lovely, but that's not the point. Natalie is engaged herself, but that isn't the point either.

So Natalie goes out to his farm to see Warren and they engage in a bit of small talk and say how nice it is to see each other. Then Natalie sees Warren's little boy and she gives him this huge hug, because she knows this kid should be hers really, or theirs, I suppose. She doesn't let go of his little boy for ages. Then she goes to leave with her friends and the way she says "bye to him will nearly break your heart. Her lips hardly move but in her eyes in the deepest longing and regret you've ever seen in your life. Natalie and Warren aren't unhappy really, just not happy in the way they could have been, should have been, had everyone just left them alone and let them be together. He even says "I don't think too much about happiness because he hasn't got time, he's got kids and a wife to feed, and a farm to run, he doesn't have any time to start wondering what might have been and getting all mushy. Problem is she does, I think, and I do too ' I have way too much time on my hands to think about things and get all upset and bothered by it all. Or maybe it's not even that I have free time, I sometimes actively choose to wallow, just like now.

The thing is Natalie and Warren will be happy in their own way, maybe even happier, even though they're not together at the end. I pretty much know for a fact that she'll be happier now because I've seen her and he obviously does make her happy, I can't deny that. She seems calm and content and everything, much more so than she ever was with me. No doubt the passion is there too, but to be honest I don't want to think about it. I don't know whether I'll be happier, but I bet in time, I probably will. That's another difference between us and the film, that at the end they're both gutted, in real life, it's mainly me. I think a while back there were flickers of doubt for her, wondering if she was walking away from the best thing either of us had ever had, but if she does think that any more, it's very, very faint now.

Mind you, I am quite cynical about all that kind of thing anyway, really, when all is said and done. I always thought that had Romeo and Juliet survived, they probably would've broken up after three months, or had James Dean lived he wouldn't be an icon anymore, he'd probably have ended up like George Burns or something. Maybe some things are better left dead because that way they'll always be bright, beautiful and young.

Still, I can't help thinking that when I return home after my two-year stint away I'll be like poor Natalie and I'll see her with a child, or pregnant, and I'll hug her kid as though it's my child, our child, and I'll have to say "bye to her with so much regret my heart won't break, it will shatter.