Posted 02 December 2014 - 10:30 AM
Well, I can't convince you to like a movie you didn't like, but I think it's timeless rather than dated in the same way In The Heat of the Night or Night of the Living Dead are (it's 25 years old and steeped in the same conversations we are having now, and which most people still refuse to even acknowledge we need to have). I think the film artfully navigates between deep character work and exploring archetypes (not stereotypes) rubbing against one another. It's deliberately microcosmic, so it's necessary for characters to represent types at times, and force them to crash into each other. Because forcing the conversation is part of the point. Personally, while I laugh plenty while watching it, I don't think the comedy is so divorced from the tragedy.
Anyways, different strokes and all that. I'd still say there's plenty of value in explicating it for people who don't particularly like it. Plenty of people might find The Scarlet Letter or Lord of the Flies or To Kill A Mockingbird dated or stylistically unpalatable, but I'd still knock everybody over the head with them.
They came with white hands and left with red hands.