Yesterday’s posting in which I retold in exactly one hundred words the improbably melodramatic story of how Mrs. T and I met, fell in love at first sight, and fooled her doctors by finding happiness has been drawing a lot of traffic. Among other things, one of my Twitter followers read it and tweeted as follows:

This is wonderful. Now the question is which director, past or present, would be the best to make this movie. And which composer to score it.

Which led in very short order to the following responses:

• “I want Frank Capra, if only to guarantee them both a gloriously happy ending.”

• “Howard Hawks and Aaron Copland, respectively.”

• “Hawks. Play it for the laughs.”

•  “The ever-underrated Mitchell Leisen (Remember the Night, Midnight).”

• “I will leave the composer to Terry, who is infinitely more qualified than I am in that department, but surely Douglas Sirk would have to direct.”

My reply to that one: “Oh, GOD. (Tears hair.)”

•  “How about Preston Sturges, and the spin he could put on it? A little wry humor wouldn’t hurt, and he always did well with somewhat absurd, larger-than-life situations.”

•  “The answer is self-evident: the man who mastered both sentiment and wit is Leo McCarey.”

• “William Wyler, with a score by Hugo Friedhofer. The only other plausible choice would be Lubitsch with a score of Viennese waltzes. I could go either way, but I can’t see any contemporary director making it work. It’s too romantic and-old fashioned and there’s neither CGI in it nor repeated use of the word ‘fuck.’”

I love all these suggestions, but I’m struck by the fact that the directors mentioned above were without exception golden-age filmmakers. In fact, the movie that I find to be closest in spirit to the improbable tale of Mrs. T and me is Brad Anderson’s Next Stop Wonderland, a 1998 indie romcom which I described when it came out as “an irresistibly charming movie about young love…Simply by taking romance seriously (for there is nothing more serious than comedy), Brad Anderson has arrayed himself unequivocally on the side of the angels.” As for casting, I myself think Hope Davis should play Mrs. T, but she would be equally happy with Laura Linney. Catherine Keener would also be a good pick.

Alas, Anderson has long since gotten out of the romcom business—he now specializes in thrillers—but perhaps Whit Stillman could do Mrs. T and Me as a costume piece!

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The theatrical trailer for Brad Anderson’s Next Stop Wonderland:

I’ve been following with interest a series of pieces that the New York Times describes as “Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.” As my beloved Mrs. T urgently awaits a fresh pair of lungs at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, I thought I’d try to sum up the wildly improbable but nonetheless true story of our courtship and marriage in one hundred carefully chosen words.

For those who read this posting the other day without knowing anything about us, here is the miracle (no lesser word is strong enough) that happened to Mrs. T and me a decade and a half ago:

We met at a dinner party and fell in love at first sight. Then I learned that she had an incurable disease with a life expectancy of two years. Then I was stricken with congestive heart failure mere days before what was supposed to be our first date. I called her from the emergency room to break the date. Unfazed, she came to the hospital. We’ve been together ever since. Instead of dying on schedule, she fooled the doctors and lived. Now she needs a life-saving double lung transplant—and we’re counting on our luck to hold one more time.

Oh, yes, one more thing—we were both forty-nine years old at the time. Let that be a lesson to you!