Random First Dates Isn't Romantic - It's About A Guy Who Takes Advantage Of A Disabled Woman (15 items)

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  (#1) Lucy Will Suddenly Have To Give Birth With No Memories Of Pregnancy

  Henry went and got Lucy pregnant. Nine or so months from that day, she's gonna wake the hell up and her water will be breaking. Surprise pregnancy! Some births take days. Women are stuck in the hospital for upwards of a week.

  So, think about this - Lucy's going to maybe come to terms with being pregnant, go through labor, then, if she falls asleep, wake up the next day having forgotten she's in labor? Or, if she stays awake all through labor, then falls asleep after the baby is born, she'll wake up to excruciating soreness and then suddenly have a baby foisted upon her.
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  (#2) Lucy's Family Robs Her Of Agency

  Lucy's family endlessly recreates the day of her accident, going so far as to fill her shampoo bottles a little each day so she doesn't get suspicious about the slight discrepancy in weight. They've keep all their calendars set to October 13th, 2002, and the house is littered with old-ass newspapers. Surely they'd have disintegrated into nothing by now. 

  The truly scary part is that Lucy's family doesn't give her any choice in the matter. They're Groundhog Day-ing her and she doesn’t know it. She's a prisoner to repetition but unaware of her prison, like Neo in The Matrix, a slave to a system he doesn't even realize exists. Lucy's family don't even give her the option of living another life. They've made the decision for her and now she's doomed to live a life repeated. 
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  (#3) Everyone On The Island Is In On The Groundhog Day-ing

  50 First Dates takes place on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where Lucy lives every day believing the date is October 13, 2002 (the day of her accident), when it's actually years later. Everyone on the island, or at the very least everyone in her town and those surrounding it, is in on the deception. They act like creepy cult members, drinking the Kool-Aid and believing that deceiving this woman is the best possible thing they can do.

  That's creepy, right? It's weird everyone is so invested in maintaining the illusion of pre-amnesia normalcy for Lucy. That's some horror movie ish right there. That's Shutter Island. That's The Wicker Man. That's straight up creepy. 
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  (#4) Lucy Would Wake Up Every Day For 9 Months To Discover She's Pregnant After Henry Knocks Her Up

  Imagine you wake up, safe in the knowledge you're in shape, in your 20s, and with no responsibilities or dependents. Then you look down and realize you're pregnant. You've got a big old pregnant belly and no knowledge as to how you got this way, who did it to you, or how far along you are. Now imagine that happening every day for nine months. That's some body horror right there, and it happens to poor Lucy when she gets knocked up by Henry: she is trapped in a prison of the mind and body.  
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  (#5) If Lucy's Dad Dies She'll Have To Learn That Every Morning

  Lucy's dad, with whom she's especially close, isn't going to be around forever. The worst part about that, and Lucy's amnesia, is that she'll always wake up thinking her dad is alive. What if, one day, she slides Henry's memory tape into the VCR (by the way, the video thing? This movie came out in 2004. Was anyone still using VHS then?) and gets told by Henry that not only is she in love with him, but her dad is dead?

  Two horrible pieces of news delivered in one fell swoop: your dad's dead and you're shackled to Adam Sandler for the rest of your life.  
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  (#6) Can Lucy Even Love Henry?

  Henry can love Lucy (in a deceptive, creepy way), but can Lucy love Henry? She meets him for the first time every day. Unless you're a love at first sight kind of person (and who's falling in love with Adam Sandler at first sight?), you're not gonna drop the L bomb the moment you meet someone. Even if they told you how great your life together is via VHS, the most you could really muster is a strong sense of like.  
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  (#7) Lucy Will Be A Horrible Mother

  Sorry, Lucy, but it's true: you'll be a horrible mother. Why? Well, for starters, you have to be able to remember things like how to swaddle babies, how to get them to latch for breast feeding or how to make a bottle for formula-fed kids, how and when to change a diaper, how to bathe children, and so on and so forth. It also helps to remember their names. 

  On the latter point, how can you be a good mother if you can't remember anything about your children's lives? You'll never understand the things they like, or the troubles and triumphs they experience day to day. What's more, sneaky kids could manipulate the crap out of her. If your mom couldn't remember anything, would you feel any remorse about telling her every day is allowance day, and you get $100 a week? If she doesn't know anything about cost of living, it would be easy to get that much out of her. 
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  (#8) Henry Is Taking Advantage Of A Woman With A Disability

  Henry's manipulative, stalker-like behavior can definitely, definitely, definitely be seen as him taking advantage of Lucy. He uses her amnesia to his advantage. He knows everything about her and she knows nothing about him, so he can use all his Lucy knowledge to paint himself as her perfect man. He creates situations that force her to interact with him, which is his starting point for tricking her into falling in love. He can spring anything on her, and if she's suspicious, there's always the old gem, "Ah, but you have amnesia and I don't, so who are you going to believe?"
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  (#9) Lucy Will Continue To Age But Her Mind Won't

  Lucy's in her 20s when 50 First Dates begins. Time has passed by the end of the movie and she's given birth to a young girl. See, the thing is, time passes. That's just what it does, no matter how hard everyone tries to make it October 13, 2002, every single day. Lucy's going to get old. Like, really old. And she'll still have the mind of a young woman in her 20s. Imagine looking in the mirror every morning thinking you’re going to see adorable Drew Barrymore's face and being presented with a wrinkly visage.

  You'd be screaming, 'I'm, like, the crypt-keeper!' like Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday.  
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  (#10) Henry Is A Super Creepy Stalker

  Henry doggedly pursues Lucy like a possessed man. Well, more like obsessed. He's a few steps short of having a corkboard covered in pictures of her, garlanded with strings and thumb tacks. He orchestrates situations which cause her to collide with him, sometimes literally, faking car troubles, staging a road block, and even putting an innocent penguin in danger. He's so determined to follow Lucy's every move and force situations that appear serendipitous but are actually calculated that this alleged animal-loving vet puts a goddamn penguin in danger. Come on, Henry. Not cool. 
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  (#11) Henry Practically Kidnaps Lucy

  The conclusion of 50 First Dates is one of the more terrifying aspects of the film. Henry whisks Lucy off to the high seas, sailing with her on a boat offering no means of escape. Imagine you're an amnesiac who wakes up every morning thinking your life has been uprooted, that you've been kidnapped and stowed away on a ship. Sure, Henry does her the courtesy of giving her a video tape detailing their life together that she can watch every morning to catch up, but Lucy's waking up traumatized every damn day. 

  And, also, eventually that video will be like 10 hours long, right? At which point, will Lucy even be able to get through the whole thing without falling asleep or killing herself to escape the crippling existential anxiety? 
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  (#12) What The Hell Is Actually Wrong With Lucy?

  Have you ever really thought about Lucy's affliction? Because if you have, it makes no f*cking sense. No one ever explains how long Lucy can remember things for and the basic set up of the film implies sleep erases her memory. This is horrible, because sleep is the greatest thing in the world, and Lucy and everyone who knows her must live with the knowledge that it will destroy their relationship every day. It's also totally moronic.

  Think about this: what if Lucy goes on a coke bender? She stays awake for five days. Does she not forget anything in that time? If she falls asleep for a few hours, it's all gone, voila, for no apparent reason? If she can't create any new memories, wouldn't she forget everything as soon as it happens, like a goldfish? 

  There are a few famous, actual cases of Lucy's affliction, anterograde amnesia. Henry Molaison "could not learn new words or remember things that had happened more than a few minutes earlier." Clive Wearing would wake up every 30 seconds as a result of his affliction, making it impossible for him to sleep properly. After 30 seconds of being awake, he forgot he had just woken up. Eugene Pauly's post-amnesia memory maxed out at learning three-word sentences. 
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  (#13) What If 50 First Dates 2 Is A Funny Games Crossover?

  Lucy marrying a man she can never truly know or love and having children she can never properly take care of is scary as hell, but what if that nightmare were compounded by home (or, in this case, boat house) invaders? If you've seen either the German or English language version of Funny Games, both from Michael Haneke, you know the score - the movie tells the (extremely disturbing) story of two sadistic young men who hold a family hostage in their own home and play violent mind games with them. 

  Funny Games is ultimately a commentary on entertainment and culture as corporate product, which makes it an interesting companion piece to a movie about being tricked into falling in love. But that's not the point. The point is, what if, somewhere in the multiverse, Henry and Lucy are victims of a Funny Games-type situation, and the sadistic home invaders get wind of Lucy's situation, rape her, murder Henry, then make a new video creating a false, polyamorous relationship between her and the men? They usurp Henry's place in Lucy's life and game her into servicing them until they tire of her and her daughter and murder them both. 

  That's f*cked up. 
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  (#14) 311 Will Always Be The Coolest Thing In The World To Lucy

  The music of 311 is an integral part of 50 First Dates. Given the characterization of Henry, there's no doubt he's the type of aging, paunchy bro who shells out big bucks for the 311 cruise each year, and frequently laments the passing of Sublime's Bradley Nowell without ever realizing the melancholic tone of that band's white reggae super hit "Santeria" is about black magic and murder. 

  But that's not really the point. The point is, Lucy will wake up every day for the rest of her life thinking 311 is the bees knees, and Henry will allow her to keep thinking this. While there's nothing wrong with 311 or liking them (before you doth protest, come on, it's just white dudes from Nebraska pumping out sweet jams, not ISIS), there's something terrifying about a woman living the rest of her life thinking 311 is the greatest band going.
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  (#15) What If North Korea Took Advantage Of Lucy To Get Leverage On Adam Sandler, Thereby Forcing The Sony Email Hacks?

  Guys, this is a long shot, but anything is possible. What if Drew Barrymore doesn't exist, and the person you think is Drew Barrymore is actually Lucy? What if 50 First Dates is a weird, Catfish-esque documentary, and Adam Sandler has actually conned this demented woman into marrying him and turning it into a highly lucrative romantic comedy? 

  Assuming you can accept that hypothetical, consider this: the 2014 Sony email hacks were, at one point, believed to be masterminded by the North Korean government as a means of getting revenge on the studio for the Seth Rogen-James Franco satire The Interview, in which an American journalist is conscripted to assassinate Kim Jong-un. What if Kim Jong-un, having the wherewithal to understand 50 First Dates is a documentary, not fiction, and knowing of Sandler's power position at Sony, elected to kidnap Lucy and use her as leverage to force Sandler, still masquerading as Henry the veterinarian to Lucy, to help North Korean hack Sony's system?

  Stranger things have happened.

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