A Place of Escape

As I sat at the computer searching movie times, one film in particular caught my eye; ‘Couples Retreat’. I had seen several previews for the film, and alongside a group of well known actors the movie seemed fairly interesting: a group of 4 married couples experiencing relationship problems decide to go on a tropical-island vacation to work things out.
As I began to think about the setting of the movie, I realized how often films place couples in warm locations. Is there something about the warm, tropical, ‘down-south’ setting that heals relationship problems? As I pondered this question, I began to realize how often advertisements associate this setting with couples. Take for example Sandals Vacations; in almost every commercial or brochure, there are couples holding hands, walking along the beach, and watching the sun set. This symbolism that is attached to these warm destinations indicates a strategic marketing attempt to bring in a specific group of individuals to their resorts.
Not only does it advertise the types of people that the resorts want to come, but it also portrays an image of what the resort will bring you. In the case of the film ‘Couples Retreat’, the resort will bring you clarity and a realization of how important your significant other is to you. Is this because a couple needs to escape their fast-paced city lives and enter a surreal space where they are pampered and waited upon to successfully work on their relationship? The reality is that these tropical vacation places do not only exist for couples to use when they need to ‘work’ on their relationship, but when they begin their relationship as well. This is obvious through the mass marketed ‘honeymoon’. Tropical destinations have become widely known for their honeymoon accommodations in the last decade. It is ironic how places become associated with rituals such as the honeymoon, or in the case of this film, as an escape from our problems. However, isn’t the place where these problems occurred where you have to return to after your week in paradise? Maybe these tropical islands can only serve as a temporary escape from our very evident problems that will continue to be around after we return.