So intriguing was the blurb of the latest Mills & Boon selection no attention was paid to the title. A cursory glance at the front cover will surely persuade many to return the book to the shelf and forego the embarrassment of checking One Night with the Rebel Billionaire out at the front desk. But not Bewildered Heart. Oh yes, gentle reader. It was only a matter of time before we relented and returned to the treasure trove of Modern Heat Harlequin, and the virginal twenty-seven year old women falling for thirty-two year old bastardly billionaire rebels, despite vast and deal-breaking differences in personality and outlook.
Trish Wylie's One Night with the Rebel Billionaire concerns a rebellious billionaire, Adam Bryant, who returns to his father's billions, having previously gallivanted around the United States, frivolously frittering away the fortune of the man he detests and wants nothing to do with. Now back to deal with his ailing father's estate, this billionaire happens upon the all grown up Roane Elliott, daughter of the Bryant family chauffeur, the Sabrina to his and his younger brother's male leads from Sabrina Fair. Naturally, Roane immediately takes a dislike to Adam, because of his arrogance and perpetual penis-flaunting. He also demeans her with the pet-name 'Little girl' and barely even looks at her when talking to someone else. One Night with a Rebel Billionaire should not be confused with Wylie's earlier The Return of the Rebel or Claimed by the Billionaire Bad Boy even though they all sound exactly the same. But look here, a fellow review to tide you over until the final, definitive word.
Trish Wylie's One Night with the Rebel Billionaire concerns a rebellious billionaire, Adam Bryant, who returns to his father's billions, having previously gallivanted around the United States, frivolously frittering away the fortune of the man he detests and wants nothing to do with. Now back to deal with his ailing father's estate, this billionaire happens upon the all grown up Roane Elliott, daughter of the Bryant family chauffeur, the Sabrina to his and his younger brother's male leads from Sabrina Fair. Naturally, Roane immediately takes a dislike to Adam, because of his arrogance and perpetual penis-flaunting. He also demeans her with the pet-name 'Little girl' and barely even looks at her when talking to someone else. One Night with a Rebel Billionaire should not be confused with Wylie's earlier The Return of the Rebel or Claimed by the Billionaire Bad Boy even though they all sound exactly the same. But look here, a fellow review to tide you over until the final, definitive word.
During the natural struggles of comprehending the atrociously written Wylie prose Bewildered Heart remains committed to working through the American Film Institute's 100 Passions List, because this weblog's interests are nothing if not rich in diversity. Thus there was the enforced opportunity of Pillow Talk, a film that begins promisingly with a catchy bass-line and pillow-tossing and quickly descends into a disappointing mixture of beautiful, successful people being beautiful and successful and a personality clash overcome by the rejection of those personalities. It is always demoralising to watch or read a story in which character is used as a plot device, with a strong and wilful trait merely an obstacle preventing them from happiness. The female lead in One Night with the Rebel Billionaire hates jerks and doesn't tolerate being mistreated, ridiculed and bullied for being a silly little woman. She makes an exception for Adam, however, because he has thick eyelashes and so she quickly sleeps with him, immediately proving she is no silly little girl who can be mistreated and bullied. He'll learn to respect her the hard way, she reasons. This is why Mills & Boon books aren't taken seriously, not because they're satirically in on the joke, but because they're stupid and sexist.
In Pillow Talk Doris Day plays an independent lady, an interior decorator who lives alone, assisted ably by the occasional visits of an alcoholic. She shares a party-line with a philandering composer, played by Rock Hudson, and they argue because she has business calls to make and he's constantly chatting up his harem of giggly, easily manipulated girls over the phone. She thinks he's a sex-mad chauvinist and he thinks she's a frigid professional. They're both right and so, the film concludes, they're perfect for each other. Combined they make one whole person with a relatively healthy attitude towards sex. The course of true love never runs so smoothly, however. Rock's best friend is in love with Doris, but she does not love him. For reasons undetermined, but possibly due to his aversion to empathy, Rock decides to screw his only friend over and seduce Doris, thus getting revenge on her and alienating himself from all of his social circles. It's win-win. Because they only have a telephone relationship Rock convinces Doris he's a visiting Texas prospector with simple, home-spun values and a chivalrous nature towards women. Doris falls head over heels in love with the act, this is the man she's been waiting her whole life for.
The charade is untenable, of course, as Rock's deceit and misogyny are soon revealed by his best friend. Then the film somehow ends with Rock and Doris happily in love with their true selves and Rock's best friend happy and glad they've found each other. How this was achieved remains a mystery that not even watching the film helps to unravel. Nevertheless, viewers will always remember not being convinced by those story machinations they are unable to recall. Pillow Talk is a light and frothy concoction that works better when lovingly pastiched. As a film it struggles with an inherent lack of depth, but the main criticism of its place on the 100 Passions list is that it is not romantic and the two leads are impossible to care for. They risk nothing and supposedly gain everything. If you're not going for drama then make us laugh. If not laugh then at least feel. Why is it that throughout this colourful canon of romance we are subjected to men and women treating each other abominably, with love viewed as the natural progression from loathing? Why should we want Rock Hudson to be happily in love with the woman he only wants to teach a lesson?
Why are we expected to care what happens to Adam Bryant and Roane Elliott? He's a snarky and insensitive date rapist and she's falling in love with him even though she clearly sees him for nothing more than an attractive date-rapist, with thick eyelashes. There are a great number of references to the man's eyelashes. The ideal husband has thick eyelashes, apparently. Without knowing the secret of thick eyelashes it seems safe to assume the ideal husband also uses eyelash curlers and mascara. Even at this early stage One Night with the Rebel Billionaire may prove a troublesome journey. It was a slog to make it all the way to the end of the title. Yet there was enough rage-inducing insanity in the first thirty pages to prompt a sudden appraisal of story-telling errors. As the story slowly, teasingly builds to the spectacular narrative crux of the two good-looking people having sex, we must prepare ourselves for the inane bickering that will inevitably follow, culminating in more sex and some kind of resolution, where the man swaps his love of misogyny, dickishness and violent threats for the love of a woman, and the kinds of things the love of a woman brings to a man now shorn of characteristics. In Pillow Talk both Rock and Doris had sunk so low in their game of petty tit-for-tat revenge that they had reached a point where marriage was the only option left to them, and so there you are, with whatever possible conclusion you can draw from that.
Why are we expected to care what happens to Adam Bryant and Roane Elliott? He's a snarky and insensitive date rapist and she's falling in love with him even though she clearly sees him for nothing more than an attractive date-rapist, with thick eyelashes. There are a great number of references to the man's eyelashes. The ideal husband has thick eyelashes, apparently. Without knowing the secret of thick eyelashes it seems safe to assume the ideal husband also uses eyelash curlers and mascara. Even at this early stage One Night with the Rebel Billionaire may prove a troublesome journey. It was a slog to make it all the way to the end of the title. Yet there was enough rage-inducing insanity in the first thirty pages to prompt a sudden appraisal of story-telling errors. As the story slowly, teasingly builds to the spectacular narrative crux of the two good-looking people having sex, we must prepare ourselves for the inane bickering that will inevitably follow, culminating in more sex and some kind of resolution, where the man swaps his love of misogyny, dickishness and violent threats for the love of a woman, and the kinds of things the love of a woman brings to a man now shorn of characteristics. In Pillow Talk both Rock and Doris had sunk so low in their game of petty tit-for-tat revenge that they had reached a point where marriage was the only option left to them, and so there you are, with whatever possible conclusion you can draw from that.
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