It was a beautiful fall of 1876 and New York City was just starting to get its present looks and shapes. In this city, that was growing and developing so rapidly, lived our character by an interesting name of Leopold. At a first glance you could say that he was living a life of a common rich man of those times, Duke of Albany he was, simple and interesting. This young and very ambitious man was charming, very well educated, and what is the most outstanding thing about him – he was an inventor. Life could not be better, you might think. But unfortunately, this is not the story of Leopold’s life. Despite being a Duke, who has wealth, respect and honor in the upper society, numerous mansions in different countries all over the world and all of the other luxuries that most of the common people could only dream about, our character had almost nothing behind his back, because he was absolutely broke and the only thing remaining was his title of a Duke, that could grant him wealth, but only if he would to marry one of the rich duchess, none of whom he even liked or could stand the presence of. Leopold was doing absolutely fine being single and poor, but it was his uncle, who was always making his miserable by persuading him to get married just for the money. The only thing that was helping out in this hard situation was our hero’s dreaminess and the mind of an inventor. In fact he was working on one at that time; an unknown mechanism, that could carry people and cargo to highest levels of everyday growing buildings, called lift. But no one really cares for his passion, and everyone disapproves it, except his old friend housekeeper – Otis.
On a dark rainy day, when Leopold went to the opening of a construction site of the Brooklyn Bridge, he noticed a strange guy, whom he had seen previously and who was actually following Leopold around and taking pictures of him. Leopold became curious of that young man, in specific about his unusual behavior and the way of dressing. So, he tried to talk to the stranger, but the one started to run away from our character as if were to be afraid of something. Leopold decided to pursue him in order to find out the truth about an unknown man and this persuasion take both of them to the top of an unfinished bridge, from which the stranger tried to jump for some reason. Leopold did manage to catch the poor guy’s hand, before his own hand slipped and now they both falling into abyss which appeared to be a time portal between the centuries.
On the next morning Leopold awaked in the 21st century New York. He was shocked and confused, when he saw suddenly changed surroundings around him. At first he thought that the strange guy, under the name of Stuart has kidnapped him. But Stuart explained to Leopold that he has found a way to forecast time portals in the temporal universe and that Leopold should remain inside his house until the portal would reopen again a week later, so that our hero can go home. Everything was new to our character: new city, new people and how they looked, new lifestyle, different machines on the streets. It was horrifying for him for quite some time, but he got used to it pretty quickly. And all this time Stuart was around telling and showing Leopold these new and breathtaking things. But unforeseen happened suddenly, as Stuart took his dog out, he got injured by falling into the lift shaft, and thus was sent to hospital, where he was unable to tell the truth about Leopold, leaving our main character absolutely alone. But that is not completely true, because upstairs lived Stuart’s ex-girlfriend Kate, by whom Leopold was pretty much intrigued. He liked that Kate was cynical and ambitious career woman, who really knew what she was doing in her life and actually liked it very and very much. One day they got a chance to chat, and suddenly Leopold recognized that he was attracted to Kate, which was unusual for him, considering the fact that their first meeting was not that pleasant at all. Having some time spent together, they decided to dine on a rooftop of their house under the romantic moonlight of New York.
But Kate had no idea who Leopold really was. When he was telling her, that he came from the past she did not believe him, but how can you blame her. She just thought that he was an actor, playing a role and was actually amused with it, until one day Kate asked Leopold to help her with her job by acting in a TV commercial and playing a Duke, which in fact he really was. When shooting of the commercial begins in which Leopold has agreed to act begins, he found out that the product, diet margarine, was not actually a margarine at all, but some kind of a disgusting substance. He refused to continue shooting in the commercial and asked his beloved one, why would she do such a thing to him, make him lie to all of those people, for which Kate said, that sometimes they have to do things that they do not want to, thus upsetting Leopold and making him leave. Their short romance seemed to have come to an end.
The next day Stuart has finally escaped from the hospital, that he has been sent to for a recovery, and came home to find Leopold utterly devastated after their argument with Kate and simply wanting to go home. And that was exactly the night that the portal has reopened again, allowing to make a time jump. Everything got arranged and our main character got sent home, to his own time. At the same, but in the future, Kate was accepting her promotion for a well job done at a company dinner, knowing absolutely nothing about Leopold, but still the hard feeling of something missing and untold was inside of her. She was giving her promotional speech as Stuart showed up strange as usual, desperately trying to get her for a word. Moments before she went on stage, he managed to get a minute in private with her to show her the pictures he took while being in 1876 and that somehow she appeared to be in those pictures. Stuart thought that he had disrupted the continuum of time, but actually it was Kate who would disrupt the fabric of time, if she didn’t go to the past and be with Leopold. So, she had to face a very hard and a life changing decision, whether to stay here and enjoy her career alone, or to be with her beloved one. Kate chose an entire lifetime with Leopold over her career, and the two of them, Kate and Stuart rushed to the Brooklyn Bridge, because in order for her to go back in time, she needed the same action Leopold did. So, there, having caught a portal between centuries, Kate vanished into 1876, where Leopold appeared resigned to be pragmatic, as his uncle had advised him to, and was about to marry one of those rich duchesses - Miss Tree, so to get her family fortune; but, just as he was about to start a speech and to pronounce his bride’s name, he saw Kate being so beautiful and charming, that it caught his breath for a moment, that he suddenly announced Kate’s name to become his bride.
That wonderful evening they got engaged and happily married in early spring, when the nature was flourishing with flowers. Though our main character did not find a wealthy wife, but he found someone so precious instead, who can only be given to you once in a life, and it is very important not to miss that someone.
References:
- https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kate_and_leopold/
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035423/
- http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/kate-and-leopold-2001
- http://movies.about.com/library/weekly/aa121901a.htm
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/03/13/kate_leopold_2002_review.shtml
- http://www.fandango.com/kateandleopold_v255995/plotsummary
