The Proposal: the Starbucks Girl we Don't Notice

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Most people have seen the movie The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock as Margaret Tate, a tough, mean Canadian boss and Ryan Reynolds as Andrew Paxton, her capitalist slave. The movie follows their shaken lives as they fall in love unexpectedly after fears of Margaret having to be deported. She then proposes to Andrew, they fall helplessly in love after a large ordeal back in Andrew's hometown which includes Margaret dancing to Lil Jon's Get Low with Betty White around a campfire, and they enjoy a nice happy ending.

But one key element is ignored in this movie, right at the very beginning, when Andrew wakes up quite late and rushes off to Starbucks to obtain a coffee for himself and Margaret. Once he enters the shop, he is confronted by a large line of sleepy business people, all waiting for that cup of caffeine. Something unexpected then happens, that key in the movie: the coffee barista at Starbucks, who does not even get a name in the cast lineup beside 'coffee barista', catches Andrew as he walks in and has already made him the coffees that he always orders. He is called to the front of the line, walking past all of the hustle and bustle contained within the line, collects the coffees and hurries off to work.

This 'coffee barista' leaves her cell phone number on Andrew's coffee cup, which had to go to Margaret because Andrew accidentally spilled his coffee on his way to her office, thus sacrificing both his coffee and the potential relationship between himself and little Miss Coffee Barista, thus withdrawing all the mental suffering he will go through on his way to Alaska with Margaret. Poor Miss Barista is then denied a mention throughout the rest of the narrative, and the rest of Andrew's short-lived life. And this is key because it symbolises us, those of us who in life which is not always short-lived, are left behind despite our unusually kind efforts to get somebody to notice us.

Knowing that Andrew was running late and that he would never miss a day of work nor his morning coffees no matter what, Miss Barista had already made them and placed them on a take-away tray for Andrew's further convenience, displaying an act of kindness, of utter love and a yearning of attention, acknowledgement, notice, none of which she ends up receiving. Miss Barista is the epitome of all those in life who are forgotten, who are rejected, who perform random acts of kindness only to be left alone in the end. Miss Barista went completely out of her way, risking a morning of receiving indignant remarks from those waiting in line just to be noticed, only to be unnoticed.

And unfortunately in life, this happens to most of us. Most of us are the living, breathing examples of Miss Barista. And there are Mister Baristas, too. The film goes on never showing her again, and that makes a comment on the Mister and Miss Baristas in life - they may go their entire lives performing good deeds to others only to remain unnoticed.