Wednesday, 25 August 2010

• Movie Romance: 4 Films with a Realistic Approach to Relationships

  

  This summer, see two star crossed lovers from dueling families fight for the right to love. Sick of that? Ok, well how about this one. This summer, follow a girl on a journey toward her life's most difficult choice-- will it be the good guy boyfriend or the dangerous rebel who swept her off her feet? Right, that's played out too. Boy bumps into girl on street. Girl drops something, boy helps her pick it up. Boy and girl become friends. Will they fall in love? Woops, sorry, gave the whole plot away.

  These movie scenarios, while certainly overdone and cliche, all have one other key point in common: they give girls (and the guys who are occasionally forced to see them) an unrealistic outlook on what love is. We don't always need beautiful, perfect, successful characters played by hotties like Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in order to fall in love with love in films, do we? Want to see a movie that has at least some grasp on reality, that gives its viewer something that at least resembles a relationship you and I might actually have? Look no further than 4 of my favorite and (in my opinion) most realistic movie romances of all time.

  4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

  
  

  While the concept of erasing someone from your memory is, yes, outlandish and very Hollywood, the issues that Clementine and Joel face that drive them apart are real issues--things like intimacy problems, self-doubt, and just spending too much time together. It's incredibly refreshing to see two people in love who are "normal," in that they have problems, flaws, and, yes, even insecurities.

  3. 500 Days of Summer

  
  

  Immediately upon watching this film, in its opening scene the narrator gives a startling tell: "This is a story of boy meets girl... But, you should know up front, this is not a love story." This is not a story of unrequited love that comes together perfectly in the end, because as we all know, in most cases, unrequited love stays just that: unanswered and unshared. 500 Days of Summer is a successful film because it helps us all to see that even in the glittery idealist land of Hollywood, sometimes things can become resolved not by getting back together cleanly, but by things staying a mess.

  2. Away We Go

  Meet Burt and Verona, a movie couple that actually, really, truly loves each other. We meet them not in the beginning of their relationship when things are new and simple, but in the middle of a tumultuous time in their lives. In any other movie, this would push them apart, but this couple whose relationship stands on a firm foundation of years of trust and friendship, does not allow the circumstances of their lives to drive them apart. If you're looking for a movie where the relationship not only survives, but thrives, no matter what, Away We Go is the film for you.

  1. Annie Hall

  The trailer says it all. This is probably one of the films that opened the door for the other three films above to be made. Regarded strongly as one of the best romantic comedies ever made, Woody Allen's 1977 classic Annie Hall broke all the traditional rules of a romantic comedy, throwing out the syrupy sweetness of the film genre's formula and focusing in on the truths about love-- that we do judge each other, that what our families think does matter, and that yes, even sometimes good things don't work out. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year, a feat for a comedy, and Annie Hall's no-holds-barred realistic take on love and relationships will not disappoint.

   

  What do you guys think? Did movies skew your view of what love is? These are my favorites, but what movies do YOU think give a realistic portrayal of relationships and love?

  • 11:03 PM
  • 14387 Views
  • 126 eProps
  • 66 Comments