Few things are certain in this world, but there is this: however critics feel about a movie, I will almost certainly disagree. There have been rare exceptions; the triteness of He’s Just Not That Into You, for example, pissed a lot of us off. Usually, however, I can be counted on as a contrarian. Such was the case with Passengers, which my husband and I saw in a theater with reclining leather chairs and a bar — hard to go wrong between those amenities and a Chris Pratt/Jennifer Lawrence pairing. I was delighted not to be the only one who enjoyed the flick and took note of its redeeming qualities.

A few weeks later, my husband and I returned to the theater, though now it was called the cinema, and we were shifted ten thousand miles from the leather-recliner situation, having moved to Sydney. It was our first adults-only getaway since we moved, so again: hard to take a stance other than Just Happy To Be Here. We saw the Will Smith vehicle Collateral Beauty upon recommendation from our older son’s therapist, whom we had flown over from the U.S. to help my son get acclimated to his new team, and who was also babysitting for us (so, you know, obligations). A couple of hours later, I had tears streaming down my face and a Screw you, critics attitude in my heart as I reasoned to my husband that saccharine overload has cinematic precedent: by all accounts, It’s a Wonderful Life opened to mixed reviews and only later became a classic.

Read the rest over at Mockingbird!