Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Relationships: In Movies

I'm a member of the Facebook group, "Everything I know about relationships I learned from romantic comedies." And sadly, that statement is probably more true than I would like to admit. And it actually caused some problems early on in the Pin Cushion relationship. Expectations were not always fair, or based on reality.

But can you blame me? (yes, you can.) Relationships in most movies, not just romantic comedies, hardly ever resemble relationships in real life. For example, take the last 3 movies I've seen: *Please Note: Spoiler Alert*
1) Drive. Ryan Gosling will do anything to keep his love, Carey Mulligan, safe. Including killing people and smashing a man's skull in with his foot. That is extreme love.
2) No Strings Attached. A movie about people having casual sex that amazingly turns into true love.
3) The Princess Bride. Buttercup is cruel to farm boy, Westley, but he loves her regardless. Also, their love endures years of separation. And he comes back from the dead for her.

Pretty unrealistic portrayals of love, right? But occasionally, a movie comes around that feels so real.

The Story of Us
[From Cinema.com]

Such an amazing movie. When I watched this with my dad, he cried. And later, when I watched it with Mr. Pin Cushion, after we'd been together for a while, we both cried. It's hard to watch because the movie does such an amazing job of showing the difficulties of relationships.

500 Days of Summer


Ugh. The sequences in this movie that show expectations versus reality are brilliant. Brilliant because I have had the same thoughts go through my head a thousand times. You hope and expect a situation to go a certain way, and reality never quite matches that expectation.

The Break-Up

Though this movie is definitely an extreme, it shows how hard and difficult and ridiculous relationship fighting can be. When watching this, I so clearly identified with Jennifer Aniston's character and could not see how anyone could side with Vince Vaughn. And though Mr. PC thought that Mr. Vaughn was 'kind of an a-hole' he also was completely disgusted by how Ms. Aniston acts throughout the movie as well.

I think the division in this movie comes down to one interaction between the two main characters, when Brooke is angry that Gary didn't wash the dishes after a dinner party--
Brooke: I don't want you to wash the dishes, I want you to want to do the dishes!
Gary: Why would I want to wash the dishes?
Right there. I understand Brooke completely. And Mr. PC understands Gary completely. Genius.

What relationship movies are your favorite? Which do you connect with the most?
I'd love to add your recommendations to my Netflix queue.
(Also, have you seen The Break-Up? Who did you side with in the movie?)

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