Sabrina

In the wee hours today, I watched my all-time favorite rom-com Sabrina, Sydney Pollack’s 1954 remake of the same name. It stars Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond and Greg Kinnear. Like Pretty Woman, it’s a Cinderella story.

It’s about a chauffeur’s daughter, Sabrina (Julia Ormond), who has been in love with David Larrabee (Greg Kinnear), the youngest of two children of a rich family that lives on the north shore of Long Island. But David is a playboy who has never noticed her. She travels to Paris to work and then returns, blossoming into a beautiful woman whom David finally notices.

Sabrina returns from Paris. An ugly duckling becomes a beautiful swan.

But in an unexpected twist of fate, she falls for the other brother, the serious and workaholic Linus Larrabee (Harrison Ford). He holds a hidden agenda to distract her from David who is now engaged to a woman whose family he is planning to have a business merger with. But Linus finds himself caught off guard because he ends up falling for her too.

All the scenes of Sabrina and Linus define my reasons for loving this movie. The first one is when they are at the solarium where Linus asks Sabrina to dance. It’s a tender moment that reveals the strong chemistry between them. Their love story unravels. And from there, I sigh, smile, and squeal to no end.

Linus and Sabrina dance at the solarium.

The next memorable scene is when they are on the plane and Sabrina tells Linus how she was named Sabrina. It’s from a poem her father had read. What makes it so significant is that Sabrina helps Linus realize that he is too immersed in his work that he is not able to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Linus begins to loosen up and starts to get more intrigued with her.

But the most poignant scene for me is when they converse with each other by the fire. Sabrina admits that he is not the man people say he is: the world’s only living heart donor. This moment defines Linus’ vulnerability. There’s more to him than being a workaholic. Sabrina asks why he never married and suggests that he probably does not believe in marriage, to which Linus replies with all sincerity, “Yes, I do. That’s why I never got married.” The look in his eyes startle Sabrina. And I just squeal in delight.

But there is this scene that has me screaming my head off and my heart beating wildly. It happens after their dinner at a Moroccan restaurant. As they go for a stroll, Linus asks Sabrina questions to say in French. The last question he asks her to translate is, “How do I say ‘I’m looking at what I want'”? He locks his gaze with hers and Sabrina stops dead in her tracks, holding her breath. She quickly fumbles, “I don’t remember.”

Aside from their love story, it’s Sabrina’s character that I find really close to my heart. She is lonely and yearns to be noticed by the one person she has always loved. Her friend in Paris tells her, “Illusions are dangerous people. They have no flaws. I came here from Provence. Alone and uneducated. For eight months… No, more than that. A year. I sat in a cafe. I drank my coffee and wrote nonsense in a journal. And then somehow it was not nonsense. I went for long walks and met myself in Paris.”

It was especially that line that really struck a chord in me because it’s about feeling lost but eventually finding yourself.

Her friend adds, “You seem embarrassed by loneliness, by being alone. It’s only a place to start.”

Since then, Sabrina learns to overcome her struggles at work, explore the City of Lights, writes in her journal on a bridge. And then she just grows beautifully.

There was a time when I used to feel what Sabrina was feeling. I no longer feel embarrassed by feeling lonely because it’s okay to be alone. I can stand on my own.

I believe I will meet my own Linus Larrabee.

Spoken like a true hopeless romantic.