I can’t decide what I like best about these shots of Mae Whitman and Matt Lauria making out on camera for scenes in an upcoming Parenthood.
A real front-runner is Mae’s stance – that wide-legged totally off balance pose is kind of hysterical to me, outlining both the wee-ness of her, and my projection that Amber couldn’t take a romantic move like kissing in the ocean without poking a little bit of fun at it.
Or it could be my amusement that these pictures are apparently so convincing they caused some commenters on a news site to sniff that they were typical exhibitionist actors who should take it inside.
Possibly it’s that these two are so newly infatuated with each other on Twitter – not in a romantic way, I don’t think, just as new buds – that I can imagine what they were saying to each other between freezing-cold takes, and that’s almost as fun as watching the show?
What do you think? The absence of Parenthood on TV this week due to Binders Full Of Women has given me a long time to think about where this romance with Amber and Ryan might be heading. Obviously what’s shooting now probably won’t air until around Christmas, so they have plenty of time to get us there, but I’m not yet warmed up to this couple the way I was with, say, Haddie and Alex (to name another FNL alum who had a lengthy stay on this show). For one thing, Matt Lauria seems prickly to me. It’s by design, I think, which is good, but Amber’s been prickly, and it’s one of my favourite things about her. She’s mellowed a bit, which is cool, but if she’s going to make a connection with Ryan I need to know more about him than that he has the balls to stand up to Zeek.
But this is what Parenthood does. It takes things you’re not sure you want to buy into, like Zeek’s commercial or Ray Romano or Jason Ritter as a grown man (yeah, I said it) and gets you to believe. Plus, Amber is the only one of her generation who can sustain a storyline on her own shoulders, and we’ve been missing that so far this season (please do not talk to me about Drew’s breakup).
It’s a nice, comfortable feeling, isn’t it? I don’t believe yet, but I know I will.
After all, there was a time when I did not root for the East Dillon Lions…
Parenthood returns this Tuesday.
