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YMMV / 50 First Dates

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  • Esoteric Happy Ending: Many have felt that the ending is arguably this due to the sheer amount of Fridge Horror caused by the life Lucy is now living. (Example: She now has a young daughter whom she must meet for the first time every single day. What kind of effect will that have on the daughter overtime?)
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Rob Schneider delivers a pretty decent performance as a native Hawaiian, but it serves as painful foreshadowing for Schneider's later career, which consists almost entirely of playing increasingly-offensive ethnic characters in Sandler's films.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Henry's first recap video for Lucy claims that the Red Sox have won the World Series since her accident. This is followed by "Just kidding!" The movie came out in 2004, just a few months before the Red Sox won their first World Series of the 21st century.
    • Barrymore's next movie, which she produced as well as acted in? Fever Pitch, set across the backdrop of the 2004 Red Sox season.
    • Henry's assistant at the aquarium is named Alexa, which is rather amusing since Amazon came out with its virtual assistant of the same name.
  • Narm: While Lucy's condition is not funny, what caused it... sort of is. "Stray Cow Causes Car Accident". Given the movie's a comedy and the fact this accident happens in Hawaii, while it's more than possible, it can be funny for some viewers.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The movie actually addresses the potential problems that Lucy will have the longer she goes with her memory being the way it is, specifically waking up and looking into the mirror to see someone ten years older. Their solution is that they are giving her a full life even though they know the wake up point will be an issue every time. The ending of the movie she marries Henry and had to remind herself of their marriage, meaning she wakes up knowing she went to bed as a care-free girl and is now in a marriage with a stranger miles from home, though at least her father is with her at the end. Worse, they have a daughter, so unless they adopted or used a surrogate, she would have woken up pregnant for at least four months straight with the only memories being those from before her accident.
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  • One-Scene Wonder: Ten Second Tom.
  • Tear Jerker: The day where Lucy realizes on her own what has happened to her and the fact that this is not the first time it's happened.
    • Lucy and Henry editing Lucy's scrapbook so she'll have no memories of being with him.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some critics complained that the movie didn't live up to the promise of re-teaming Sandler and Barrymore after their more familiar collaboration.
    • Many consider the premise itself (patient and her family dealing with short term memory loss and anterograde amnesia) having a potential for a very strong drama, yet being undermined by lowbrow humor typical for other Adam Sandler movies.
  • The Woobie: Lucy.


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