Now I love a great romance story, but the inherent problem with them is that most of them are utter bullshit.
Need proof? Here's four of my favorite love stories that lie right to your face. To prove how serious I am about this subject, I picked my absolute favorite romance films. These are movies that tug at my heart strings every time I watch them...and now I am going to ruin them for all of us.
*WARNING: This post has movie spoilers and is also a particularly bitter entry. If you don't want to have these movies ruined for you I suggest you stop reading now.*
Say Anything...
The Story: It's your basic Lloyd meets girl story. Say Anything... features John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler, a mediocre student and aspiring kickboxer who attempts a relationship with school valedictorian Diane Court (played by Ione Skye), despite the fact that some of his friends believe she is out of his league. Diane has just won a major fellowship to study in England and will be going there at the end of the summer. Her father Jim, played by John Mahoney, is under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service for alleged tax violations committed at his nursing home, and Diane worries she should be spending more time with her father rather than Lloyd. Also, Jim does not approve of his daughter dating an underachiever like Lloyd, and pressures her to break up with him. Lloyd ultimately wins her heart before the summer's end and helps support Diane through her dad's conviction. The film ends with Lloyd escorting nervous-flyer Diane to England.The Reason You Watch It: Lloyd Dobler is a hopeless romantic, a man who will stand outside your house playing your song on a boom box held over his head just to try and get you to notice him. He's the kind of guy that will kick glass out of your way so you won't step in it. Lloyd Dobler is the kind of guy that every girl wants, and every guy should strive to be like. To say I love Lloyd Dobler is putting it mildly...I fucking idolize the guy. It's also a great feeling to know that in the end, Diane realized that Lloyd would be the only guy in the world for her, the one who would always protect her and be patient with her, someone she could say anything to.
Why It's Full Of Shit: Diane Court would never in a million years take Lloyd with her to England. He was a summer fling, and he was a nice distraction, but Diane would fall for the first dude with an accent that was interested in her. It works that way, even if a dude is ugly as fuck, if he has an accent he is instantly more attractive than any American guy. There relationship just wouldn't work out in the long term, and I'm sure someone like Diane would realize that. They wouldn't work out because as awesome as they were together, people usually choose life over love. Yes it's depressing to think that they don't end up together. The unfortunate fact though is that most people who are in love never end up together. That's what happens when two people from completely different worlds try to come together...they crash and burn.
Juno
The Story: Juno (Ellen Page) is a sixteen year old high school student faced with an unexpected pregnancy. The father is another teenager named Pauly Bleeker (Michael Cera) who she doesn't consider to be her boyfriend. She wants it to go away like a bad dream, but she realizes she needs to take control of the situation. She considers Woman's Help Center for what she calls "Speedy Abortion", but her friend Su-Chin, an anti-abortion protester, tells her just outside the clinic that the fetus probably has fingernails by now and Juno changes her mind. Juno finds an ad in the Penny Saver from Mark & Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner), who are desperate for a child, but ultimately have a marriage that falls apart due to Mark not being ready to be a father.Throughout the film Juno comes to understand relationships and makes a decision to seek out the love of the boy who got her pregnant, because she actually cares for him and he probably cares a lot for her. They become very close and Juno finds she actually loves him. They become a couple, Juno delivers the baby, and rather surprisingly Vanessa still makes the adoption, as a single parent. Juno and her lover elect to not see the child, and to let matters take their course. In closing scenes life has returned to normal and she and Bleeker sing a Moldy Peaches song together.
The Reason You Watch It: Aside from it's quirky dialogue, bad ass soundtrack, and Rainn Wilson cameo, people like this movie because of the love story between Juno and Bleeker. Two 16 year old kids who not only find true love with each other, but are able to get through a strenuous and life changing event together. It's a bold statement that says you can fall in love at any time, and under the most unusual circumstances.
Why It's Full Of Shit: Lets ignore the obvious reason (Bleeker heading for the hills the second she utters "I'm pregnant") and just go to the root of the problem. Do you honestly think that relationship would last? For one thing, they're fucking 16...nobody knows shit at 16. Juno isn't the type of girl to settle down anyway, she's wild at heart. Bleeker would held onto her for a while, mostly because she feels bad for him, but eventually his passive aggressiveness would have driven them apart.
Now there are a few instances where this is not the case. I know plenty of people who met their one and only in high school and have gone on to have great, long lasting relationships. But, when you're talking about Juno, you have to keep one thing in mind...
Those couples didn't have a fucking baby together at the age of 16.
How do you get over something like that? You have already had a child together...what the hell do you do next? Go to prom? Join 4-H together and make Popsicle forts? You blew your load too early kids, prepare for a boring fuck relationship.
So if you want to watch a movie about how you and your high school sweet heart are meant to be, I hope I have officially ruined this barrel of lies for you.
Love Actually
The Story: Love is all around us. And that's certainly true for all of these people. John and Just Judy have fallen in love with each other while on the set of an erotically charged film. David has just become the new Prime Minister. The second he steps into his office/home, he is smitten with Natalie, his catering manager who had already screwed up at the first minute. David's sister is Karen, who's married to Harry, who runs a local magazine. Harry is somewhat smitten by his secretary, Mia, who is constantly hitting on him. Harry's best editor is Sarah, who has a brother in the asylum and a not-so-hidden crush on Karl, who has a thing for her as well. Karen is friends with both Daniel (Liam Neeson), who has just lost his wife and has discovered that his stepson is in love with a young American girl, and Jamie, whose girlfriend has just left him for his younger and more attractive brother, forcing him to move to France to continue writing his novel while falling for Aurelia, a young Portuguese woman who can't speak a lick of English or French. Juliet has just married Peter, not realizing that his best friend Mark has loved her since they first met. Colin is desperate to have sex and believes that in order to do that, he should travel to Wisconsin because he thinks that American women will dig him for being British. And Billy Mack, an old rocker who is climbing back up the charts after battling his old heroin addiction, is on the radio and TV shows either bad-mouthing his new CD, insulting his manager, Joe, or a hot new boy band, or calling Britney Spears the worst sex he's ever had. Ultimately Peter, Juliet, and Mark co-exist together quite well, Colin bangs a bunch of American girls (dudes with accents, I'm telling you), Aurelia and Jamie become engaged, Harry and Karen try to make their marriage work and David and Natalie fall hopelessly in love and start a relationship together.
The Reason You Watch It: This movie covers every kind of relationship possible so that it can appeal to everyone. At one point or another everyone has gone through something that Love Actually had in its plot. It shows that love is all around, and that its awesome power can do anything.
Why It's Full Of Shit: Christ where do I start. First off, when Jamie showed up at the restaurant that Aurelia works at to propose to her, he's known her for like 3 weeks.
3 FUCKING WEEKS.
I think he might be jumping the gun a little bit on that one. I mean I can see why she said yes. He's a writer with a sexy accent, and she's a piss poor Portuguese waitress/maid. She'd be an idiot not to take that golden ticket. I just don't think its going to end well for Jamie when he realizes that maybe rushing into marriage with someone he doesn't even know turns out to be a horrible idea.
Also David would not choose Natalie. He would always pick his career first. Why do you ask? Because he's the Prime Minister. It's not like he's a butcher. He made it clear his feelings for Natalie distracted him from his work. He probably would have gotten a blow job under his desk, smoked a cigar, then called it a day with Natalie.
Mark would not have stayed friends with Juliet and Peter. If you haven't had to deal with someone you love being with someone else than consider yourself lucky, because it's the most painful thing imaginable. To make it worse he was best friends with the guy his heart is telling him to despise. Unless Mark was a masochist I'm pretty sure he would have said so long to that friendship in order to pull himself back together.
Karen and Harry would have ended up divorced.
Colin would have gotten an STD.
Billy Mack would have OD'd on cocaine, dying in a pool of his own urine.
Merry fucking Christmas.
The Notebook
The Story: A young woman comes to the coastal town of Seabrook, North Carolina in the 1940's to spend the summer with her family. Still in her teens, Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams) meets local boy Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) at a Carnival. On the spot, Noah senses that he and Allie are meant to be together. Though she is a wealthy debutante and he a mill worker, over the course of one passionate and carefree summer in the South, the two fall deeply in love. Circumstances - and the sudden outbreak of World War II - drive them apart, but both continue to be haunted by memories of each other. When Noah returns home from the war years later, Allie is irrevocably gone from his life, but not from his heart.Though Noah doesn't yet know it, Allie has come back to Seabrook, where they first fell in love. But, now Allie is engaged to marry Lon (James Marsden), a wealthy soldier she met while volunteering in a GI hospital. Several years pass, and, when they meet again, their passion is rekindled, forcing Allie to choose between two men...her fiance who she has been with for years, or her fist love that has come back into her life. In the end Allie chooses Noah, the first man she ever gave her heart to, and they grow old and die together.
The Reason You Watch It: Everyone wants to believe that true love can last through anything. Allie was torn to pieces, but ultimately she had to choose one of them. The love that she had with Noah is the kind of love everyone wants to have...unconditional and ever lasting. Even if she had picked Lon, Noah would have still loved her till the end of time. The idea of a love that strong is what makes this movie so enjoyable.
Also everyone has that love out there, the one who makes your heart skip a beat whenever you see them. The person you can't go a day without thinking about. Some people married that love, some had to let them go. Either way, The Notebook is relate able because everyone has gone through it. It shows us a love that we can compare to our own, and see that sometimes true love actually does conquer all.
Why It's Full Of Shit: Allie would never have picked Noah over Lon. NEVER. Yes, she loved him, but she also loved Lon. And, guess what? Lon wasn't a bad guy. He was actually a great guy. He put up with a lot of Allie's shit, and Lord knows she was a huge pain in the ass. She would have chosen Lon for one simple reason, he is the comfortable choice. The easy choice. This is where love has no say in the matter. She loved them both, so you have to look at the other factors. Choosing Noah means she has to pretty much abandon everything else in her life just to be with him. She would lose her family's approval, her friends, her whole life. By choosing Lon she keeps all these things. Yeah she loses Noah, but she's lost him once before...she can do it again. Noah was a risk, and I am yet to see in the real world a girl take a risk that big. Those kind of things just don't happen.
The sad truth boys and girls is that true love is not all powerful. It can't heal all wounds. Love is a beautiful thing, and you can share that love with someone for a long time...even till the day you die. But, the simple truth is that most of the time, things just don't work out. I don't think I'm a pessimist, I think I'm just being realistic here. It's just not conceivable to think a girl would leave her long term relationship for a chance with a guy she fell in love with over a summer when she was a teenager.
Regardless of this I love The Notebook, I don't care who knows it. I myself like the idea that true love conquers all. I seriously feel for everyone who has not had a chance to try and grasp onto that one lost love, but it's time to let that stuff go people. Time to move on and see what else the big old world has to offer you.
Well, I hope I have officially depressed everyone enough to never believe in true love again. Please keep in mind that I don't hate these movies, I love them. But, once again they are movies...fictional ones at that. I think its time that we as a society stop filling our heads with this stuff and expecting it our love lives to turn out like they do in the movies. Relationships take work folks.
Stop waiting for true love to happen for you, and go out and make it happen. Either that or cry like a bitch. FYI girls don't like cry babies.
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