I saw Romancing the Stone years ago and I remember liking it, but I also don't think that I ever rewatched it. Recently, though, it was used as an example in a writing craft book I was reading, so I watched it again. To my surprise, it mostly held up.
Romancing the Stone was first released in 1984 and stars Kathleen Turner as romance novelist Joan Wilder and Michael Douglas as Jack Colton. It's hard to describe him--maybe adventurer?
***WARNING: There will be spoilers! The movie is 36 years old.***
Joan Wilder is a timid, non adventurous woman who writes characters full of daring. She's just turned in her latest novelist to her publisher when she gets a phone call from her sister who lives in Colombia (and recently lost her husband). She's been kidnapped and the men who are holding her want the envelope the dead husband had mailed to Joan. Though it's the last thing she wants to do, Joan flies to Colombia to save her sister.
Thanks to the bad guy, she ends up on the wrong bus. When she figures out that she's nowhere near Cartagena, she tries to talk to the bus driver who hits a Jeep parked on the side of the road. Everyone on the bus leaves, but the bad guy tells her there will be another bus and she should wait. Luckily for Joan, Jack Colton arrives to save her before she can be murdered.
Joan hires Jack to get her to a phone so she can get to Cartagena and that's when the story (and the romance) start to take off.
Throughout the movie, we see Joan force herself to do things that scare her and she comes into her own, becoming the woman we suspect she wanted to be, but lacked the courage to become without this need to save her sister.
There's Danny DeVito who is also a bad guy, but he's not working with the man that would have murdered Joan. Danny (Ralph) is working with his cousin and things just don't work out for him.
The film has humor. It has action. It has adventure. And it has romance. It's actually exactly the kind of story I like.
There are things that date it. 1984 was a long time ago. But overall, I thought it held up well. Recommended.
