As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes with Joe LaydenThe Princess Bride is the most important movie from our college lives. Kansas Dad's friends watched it repeatedly, even assigning roles to each person that would be recited in chorus with the movie. (Kansas Dad was the clergyman.)
In this memoir, Cary Elwes (Westley) eloquently and touchingly shares his love of the movie. All along the way, the producer, director, and other actors chime in through interviews with their own memories. A book like this shows how making movies can bring joy and goodness into our culture, both through a movie itself, but also through the relationships of those who create it together.
I also think there is a reason everyone involved with The Princess Bride still enjoys talking about it more than twenty-five years later: it really was that much fun. There's a certain pride in the finished produce, of course, and of being forever associated with such an enduringly popular movie. But it's the process itself that I remember most, and how much fun it was to go to work every day.Being enamored of The Princess Bride ourselves, I thought perhaps we would have already heard all the stories from behind the scenes, but many of them were new even to Kansas Dad. Our children also love this movie and I'm comfortable sharing this book with them. First Son might like to read it, or perhaps we'll all listen to the audio CD version.
If you haven't seen the movie, go watch it now. In fact, watch it a few times. Then you'll appreciate this book all the more.
