There is nothing like a nice old love story, but are they always so nice?

Year Of The Dragon is a great film, and Mickey Rourke absolutely kills it in the role. But there is something so unpleasant about the romance between Stanley and Tracy Tzu. As soon as , I felt a bit too uncomfortable about the whole thing. Luckily it's not the major focal point, and Ariane is very likable as Tracy, but it's just something I took issue with.

In the case of Coal Miner's Daughter this is not so much a flaw with the movie as much as it is deliberate (at least to an extent). At first when Doo is introduced, he seems like a charming enough man. Way too old for Loretta of course, but that was common in those days. However, just like in YOTD Why I say this isn't a flaw though is because you really do buy that Loretta loves him. Some people are willing to let themselves be treated poorly just because the other can be so sweet and caring whenever they aren't angry. It's disturbingly realistic, in fact. That being said, the film does try to paint up his redemption, which was hard for me to swallow since I couldn't get over how reprehensible this man has been towards her.

There are a lot of stories where the "love of a good woman" redeems a man, and I often have mixed feelings about them. I do think that people can change, and I do think that people deserve forgiveness. But sometimes women (or children characters) are treated as little more than plot points to help a male character change his life, and that often falls a bit flat for me.

Now, in the reverse gender dynamic, in the movie Gentlemen's Agreement, the Gregory Peck character dates a woman who is very anti-Semitic. And there's this other female character who is super awesome! But the film only treats the biased woman as a love interest. As my sister bluntly put it, "I can't believe he's going to end up with her, she sucks."

Kind of an obvious one, but I ended up watching Twilight in a hotel room one night and I was surprised at how troubling I found the romance between the two characters. I'd heard, of course, that people had a problem with it, but it was slightly worse than I'd expected.

In Pitch Perfect the main character has a crush on a hot, older student who is a DJ. But the love interest is this guy from another singing group. I really didn't care for the way that her liking the hot guy was seen as dumb (people should be allowed to have crushes! Even if they just want a fling/sex!). And I didn't like the way that the "love interest" treated her. The specifics escape me, but I feel like there were several times that he was really rude to her just because she didn't like him. Just because you think you are a "nice guy," it doesn't mean people have to want to date you!

The way that the two male leads of Sixteen Candles talked about raping an unconscious girl like it was an okay thing to do ("I got Caroline in my bedroom right now, passed out cold. I could violate her ten different ways if I wanted to." "What are you waiting for?") completely turned me off of both of them. You can argue that it's "historically accurate" or whatever, but that won't make me want her to end up with either of them. Molly Ringwald deserved better.

Four Weddings and a Funeral had such dull, unkind main characters. I couldn't root for any of them (except slightly for the gay couple).

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is based on the main characters being awful to each other, and especially the Kate Hudson character. I thought the whole thing was painful. I guess at least if they are with each other, everyone else is safe.

I thought that the whole dynamic of Gigi was pretty gross.

In Stranger by the Lake the main character strikes up a sexual/romantic relationship with a man who may be a killer. But the main character is so nice! He's really attractive! He's a good listener! He could find such a nice boyfriend/sex buddy! I know that the romance is meant to be messed up, but it really made me sad.

Well I watched some of Year of the Dragon again because of this comment to refresh myself.

I didn't think it was rape in this sense... He throws her down and forces a kiss on her and it seems like she doesn't want it based on her reaction and her trying to resist, then it cuts to another scene entirely, to like the next day at the police station.

A few scenes later, we see him and her having completely consensual sex and cuddling romantically. So something must have happened after it cut away from him force kissing her. She must have changed her mind during the kissing because now she is all over him romantically, and cuddling, and getting naked and intimate, the next time they meet.

So why is she still with him if she thinks she was raped? She must not have thought of it that way, if she is still with him, I figured, or she must have changed her mind through that kiss, when it cut away.

That's why I didn't think it was rape, but I am wrong? It was nevertheless a very awkward forced kiss scene, that akwardly cuts away, and still could have been written and directed much less awkwardly perhaps. So even though I think it is awkward, and perhaps sticks out like a sore thumb in the movie, I don't think it was rape, if she wants him a few scenes later, since she must have changed her mind through the kissing, unless I am wrong?

As for the rest of the movies, I haven't seem most of them, but I also agree with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. They were so awful to each other, I didn't want them to end up together, but they did.

He clearly forced himself upon her. It's not even subtle. She might have started to enjoy it after a while, but if she doesn't agree to it all the way it's still rape. Not to mention this is what the soundtrack playing during that scene is called:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rQVQs3AC8Q

As for why she stayed with him, the 80's had a major issue with downplaying sexual assault. Unless the character is an obvious super villain, things like these get taken much less seriously and even romanticized sometimes, like in this instance.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

That part of the soundtrack was not played during that scene in the movie. I just watched the movie again today, to confirm. Later on in te movie, the mafia members break into her house to rape and that is when the music is played. It is not played when Mickey Rourke rapes her, if that is what he did. But the music was not played over that scene of her and Mickey Rourke. That sequence didn't have any music.

But if it is rape, I think the question we need to ask ourselves is why did they write it so that she was turned on by the rape and wanted to romance with the guy afterwards then.

What's also strange I found was that if it was rape between her and Mickey Rourke, then why did she enjoy that and still want to be with him after, but then later, when the mafia guys break into her place and rape her, she is traumatized by that, and didn't like it at all? Why was one rape okay with her, but the gang rape later, was not?

That I find to be questionable. This is why at first I thought well maybe the first one wasn't rape if she enjoyed it, compared to the gang rape later which she did not like at all. But if it was rape with Mickey Rourke as well, why write it so she okay with one, and not the other?

Thank you. I don't know why this is a hard concept for so many people. An encounter between two people can have consenting parts and not consenting parts. Something can start as an assault and someone can change their mind, or something can start as consensual and then someone can change their mind. Either way, the non-consenting part is wrong! If someone is resisting you physically or verbally, you should stop! Not assault them in the hopes that they will have a change of heart.

It's like if someone breaks into your house and after a while you decide you're okay with them being there. They still committed the crime of breaking and entering. If someone steals my bike and I later decide to give it to them, they still committed the crime of theft. There are women who date and/or marry the men who raped them, but it doesn't mean that a crime didn't happen.

To get back to the main topic of the thread, I don't necessarily root against the movies I'm about to describe, but I always worry a bit about romances that come from two people being in a stressful situation. Like two people are trapped in an elevator! Or they get snowed into a cabin! It's not that I don't think it's sweet that two people can help each other through an ordeal, but I always feel like a relationship that starts that way might not be one that will last. A good example would be like Romancing the Stone or River of No Return.

As weird as it might be. the first movie I thought of when I saw the title of this thread was Alec Baldwin chasing after Meryl Streep in It's Complicated

I think the reason why people have a hard time accepting it, and I very well could be wrong, is that in movies like that, the female character still likes the male character and doesn't consider herself raped, and the audience think it should be her call as to whether or not she considers it rape. If she doesn't consider herself raped, then why should the audience to think so, because it's the characters call and not the audiences.

I don't think we, the viewer, should tell a character "no, you're wrong", when it's up to the character to decide what was what.

Unless I am totally wrong on this as a viewer?

Did the character ever explicitly say how she felt about their first sexual encounter? Or are you inferring that she was okay with it because she later has consensual sex with him? Like I said--there are people who stay in relationships (even long term ones) with people who sexually or physically assaulted them. Just because someone stays in a relationship with someone who harmed them, that doesn't automatically equal that they don't think what happened to them was wrong or that they "don't consider [themselves] raped."

Also, let's keep in mind that Tracy is a person, but she is also a character written by the collective efforts of three men.

Consider this excerpt from Gene Siskel's 1985 review when the film first came out:

In real life it's true that there are some complicated connections between love, attraction, violence, sex, communication, trust, lust, and happiness. But I have yet to see a film where a man forces himself on a woman and she's really into it that wasn't written by a man. I think you're trying to apply more logic to the character than the writing deserves.

Also, to zoom out even more, the question the OP asked what which relationships we didn't root for. Tracy (as a character inside the film) might be really into her relationship, despite the sexual assault. But it is the OP's right as a viewer to say that he finds their relationship gross and thus didn't root for it.

I know a few people who LOVE this movie, though I have yet to see it myself.

What didn't you like about their characters?

The characters have been divorced for a long time...Baldwin's character has actually remarried and is being pressured by his new wife into having a baby, the pressure of which tempts him into bed with his ex (Streep) when they meet in New York for one of their kids' wedding. At the same time, Streep begins a nice relationship with a sweet, unattached architect played by Steve Martin, who would be perfect for her, but Baldwin's dogged pursuit of her has her totally confused.

I thought that the whole dynamic of Gigi was pretty gross.



I have to agree here

Gotcha.

It's funny to realize that despite knowing a bunch of people who love it, I know like nothing about the film, LOL. I didn't even realize Steve Martin was in it!

Oh okay thanks. Do you know where I can find Siskel's review of it, I am unable to find it so far.

Also, yes that is a good point that it could have been rape even though the woman changed her mind at some point during it, I see what you mean. I guess my attitude towards the female character is, well if rape turns you on, you do you, and rock on!

But of course I see what you mean that the act of rape was still there. Why is it that in older movies, female characters once in a while would be sexually aroused by being raped though, and want to stay with the guy? Is it just because of male writers or is this realistic amongst a certain percentage of women, but they actually are happy with the guy and seem to be enjoying themselves, such as in Year of the Dragon?

But the nevertheless, I do think that the rape scene in Year of the Dragon was poorly written, and that he should have seduced her in another way to make the romance less awkward and arbitruary.

As for male writers, writing about this kind of thing, and not female ones, I guess one that comes to mind is the movie 365 Days which I read was written by a female. I haven't seen the movie but it's about a woman who is kidnapped and sexually assaulted by her captor but then she ends up falling for him and they have a relationship. I haven't seen the movie, just going by what I have heard.

But I guess if that happens in the movie, than that is one example of a female writing about it rape, where the woman falls for the guys after?

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...413-story.html

People can be turned on by whatever turns them on. But here's a question: are their later sex scenes rough? Is violence the thing that seems to attract the love interest?

And secondly: setting aside Tracy's response, what does it say about Rourke's character that he would assault a woman that way? There's a HUGE difference between knowing ahead of time that someone would want a more intense sexual encounter with those elements and just forcing yourself on someone. If a man (or woman) without warning suddenly punched their partner during sex and it just happened that their partner liked that, the person throwing the punch is still a major creep for doing it without consent.

There is a school of thought among some people that men know what women "really want", and that what a woman says about it doesn't matter. Plenty of people from all genders get off on power dynamics and controlled violence (hence why the dominatrix industry exists). There's a big difference between someone being turned on by sexual violence and the idea that some people (usually women) have to be forced into sex so that they can see that it's good. There's also the very old fashioned notion that once a woman has sex with a man, she belongs to him--that sex is a way of staking a claim on a person. Until 2007 in Costa Rica, you could rape someone and be found innocent as long as you offered to marry the victim. I think that there are a lot of weird cultural reasons why you see those dynamics in films/books/TV.

I haven't seen 365 Days either, but according to the wiki summary, he says that he won't touch her until she gives her permission and their first sexual encounter is consensual (you know, as much as sex can be consensual when you're someone's hostage). Women being assaulted and then it turning into romance isn't something I've seen in movies written by women, but it is pretty common in romance novels written by women. But those novels are often very clearly written as fantasy and not meant to be realistic.

Again: people can be turned on by what they like. As long as they understand that films are not reality, god speed. But much like the OP, I find it hard to root for a romance when one member of the relationship was willing to assault the other.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Dunno about you guys but I thought the sex scene in Naked Action: College Girl Rape Edition (1990) might have not been consensual.

Your Name (2016)... all the groping, disgusting.

Yeah that's true, there are good points made there. What was going through Mickey Rourke's characters mind when he chose to initiate the rape and all... When I discussed 365 Days with a friend, she said that it was still rape because even though the guy did not promise to touch the woman until she consented, since she was kidnapped, she still consented out of pressure from the kidnapping, or at least that is what I was told.

The power dynamic makes sense. What about a movie like High Plains Drifter, where Clint Eastwood's character rapes the woman but then the woman wants him after and comes back to him, trying to get him into bed again after?

But were you rooting for the central romance? Let's keep on topic here, people.

The movie where Clint Eastwood films himself heroically raping a woman but because he's so magical and manly she falls for him (as does the only other significant female character)? And the female victim is repeatedly mocked and humiliated? And what happened in the barn was something she "wanted" and "enjoyed" (though these are always his words, not hers)? But we're meant to think that she deserves it because she's greedy and annoying?

I actually think that High Plains Drifter is a fascinating, A+ movie with D- gender dynamics. If you removed the character of the woman he attacks, it would probably be my favorite western.

When characters don't behave in a way that makes sense, there are two possibilities. (1) The writer is exploring an interesting, real contradiction in the way that people behave and relate to each other or (2) the writer has failed to portray a realistic human being.

The idea that a woman would deliberately provoke a strange man totally fails the common sense meter for me. I could buy her being snooty around him. I could buy her trying to seduce him (because she wants to ally with someone powerful). But initiating a physical altercation? Nah. Watch that scene and ask yourself what she could possibly hope would be the outcome of that confrontation. I literally cannot think of an answer to that. And it's because that scene was written expressly with the purpose of giving him a reason to attack her.

Again, I think that an imbalanced power dynamic can sort of work when a film exists in a certain fantasy realm (just like child abduction can be fun when you're watching Treasure Island!). But in any kind of realistic setting/scenario it's creepy and wrong and not the basis of a romance I'd want to root for.

Also, here's a controversial (maybe) answer: His Girl Friday

Don't get me wrong--I totally rooted for them to be partners. But romantic partners? Nah. They have high-quality partner/co-worker vibes. But for me there was a serious lack of sexual spark between them.

I feel like ideally they'd work together and continue to spar and challenge each other, but they'd each have a handful of no-strings-attached sex buddies.

King Kong and Ann Darrow. It was doomed from the start.

Oh okay. And another thing about High Planes Drifter is that maybe

I never thought it as a romance, but if it counts, then yes.

Their families would never approve!

I really hope that when someone asked them about this, the writers confirmed that, yes, his character did .

I mean, we can dance around trying to validate and rationalize something that doesn't make sense. Or we can just admit that it's dated sexist garbage and call it a day.

I hope one day to have your sense of humour! 👏👏

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

The main character and his girlfriend from the Crank movies. She's oblivious to his secret life as a hitman, then she storms out on him when he tells her the truth, at which point he forces himself upon her because he needs the adrenaline rush to fight the poison in his system (while they are in the middle of a crowded street, no less) and, after struggling against him for a bit, she gives in and starts to enjoy it. For the rest of the movie, she's ride-or-die for him. It continues in the sequel where she initially hates him for having disappeared without a word (he was being held hostage after falling out of a helicopter) but all is forgiven with yet another sex scene (admittedly more consensual than the first). At one point she's arrested and an interrogating officer asks why she stays by the guy after all he's put her through and the movie never provides an answer (my memory's hazy but that might be her last scene in the movie as well).

Yeah I see your point. Also, there are other movies that do this do this too, since I just saw Wedding Crashers not to long ago, and the woman ties up Vince Vaughn, gags, him and rapes him, and he tries to fight his way off and screams, so it seems like it's clearly rape, even more so than Year of the Dragon in the sense that there was screaming for help, and Vince Vaughn's character, still falls for her after, and I didn't by it at all, and thought how did this happen?

I was being slightly facetious 😜

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Ron and Hermione

It was only uncomfortable because it was overdone. Otherwise it was an understandable thing to show. I mean, if I ever get trapped in a woman's body, then I would behave in the exact same manner 😁.

Even Harry and Ginni. Luna was perfect for Harry.


@topic
Eastwood and Rene Russo's relationship (of sorts) in the movie In the Line of Fire is just plain strange. He is shown to be this sexist, rude, old prick who regularly misbehaves with Russo and yet somehow she wants him.

I think King Kong and Ann Darrow was an absolute romance

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Oh okay, I've always thought of King Kong as more of a pet relationship, like how one loves a pet, sort of deal.

But for me, one romance off the top of my head I wanted to end in disaster was Gone with the Wind, and I was so glad it did.

Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) and the creature in The Shape of Water. Pure bestiality.

I now have another example to add: All Night Long.

The movie was okay and Gene Hackman does a great job, but both his and Barbra Streisand's characters are awful people and never really do anything I would say "redeems" them. Hackman even seems to become a bigger jerk as it goes on. I also didn't think the chemistry between them was convincing, along with the dialogue being very cheesy.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Quasimodo and Esmeralda

Even for a gypsy she could do much better.

What? I was rooting for them and AGAINST Phoebus :laugh:


Anyway, Pretty in Pink. I'm a Duckie fan

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

I love the two OSS117 movies by Hazanavicius. Great deconstruction of all the racist and sexist tropes of my favorite spy old movies. Except that, at the end, in a classic fashion, OSS117 "gets the girl" that is supposed to represent the modern critical look on the parody's object. During all the film, she's the "straight man" who (sometimes tediously) explicits the author's view on the antihero's beliefs, but at the end she's the one who manifests the most praise and admiration by falling in love with him ? It kinda defeats the point of the movie, and makes her role awkwardly switch from *straight man" to "bond girl caricature".

That's the main clumsiness of these otherwise glorious movies.

I don’t see it this way. Bet you anything Rhett came back to Scarlet. He’ll never meet another woman like her.

Going off-track slightly, the worst wedding day on screen must be from High Noon.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

I'm generally against all of them. Forrest Gump should have told Jenny to piss off, and of course why did the rich guy in Pretty Woman want some hooker? In Steel Magnolias, Julia Roberts gets lucky again when she ends up marrying some handsome lawyer. Good lord, but she was just insufferable.

Oh, and Kong should have thrown Ann Darrow in the air and gobbled her down like an M&M as she came back down.
Or maybe I'm just not a romantic kinda guy.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

The guys in Brokeback Mountain (but only because they were already married & had children)... otherwise, I'd say, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." ;)

Forbidden love is a common theme (e.g., The Thorn Birds) and the opening stages of romance are basically dyadic narcissism, chasing a high "how 'X' makes ME feeeel" - thus there is something rather off-putting about two fresh lovers wreaking havoc in the lives of friends and family, prior commitments be damned (e.g., Romeo and Juliet).

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Dr Zhivago and Lara. When you have a tacky affair, you end up in the Revolution or the Gulag, or you walk home to Moscow from Siberia in the winter, none of which work well for me.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Romeo and Juliet...it was doomed right from the start.

Ha!... :D

Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. He treated her badly, and didn’t deserve her. Should have ended differently.

Major League. Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) and Lynn Weslin (Rene Russo). Here he had cheated on her multiple times, to the point she eventually left him three years (I think?) prior to the start of the movie. He decides to try and win her back but what does he do? He follows her. He jokes about his past indiscretions ( “She said she had a better body then you so I had to defend your honor!”). He’s a jerk. And we never really see this supposed “change” he claims he’s done, especially considering when we’re first introduced to him, he’s hungover and entangled with the naked body of previous nights lover.
Oh, but he reads a comic of Moby Dick.

And I liked both movies…..

I agree about how he treated her, but her going back to him is what drove the film home to me. It's what makes it all more interesting.

I felt had she walked out on him in a similar manner as Rhett leaving Scarlet, it would have had more of an impact.
But there was no way they were going to end the film on such a low note.

I felt exactly the same way about Pygmalion.

Not only does it go against the original ending of the play (something that Shaw was angry about for YEARS), it also undermines the idea of Eliza's self-realization and emancipation. The brilliance of the story is that the "creator" has made a woman he would want . . . and that she realizes she is too good for him. His assertion that he is demeaning to everyone is the kind of garbage that gross people tell themselves. Her walking away from him is a triumph for both of them, even if it isn't the "happy ending". It might be different if he ever softened, but at least in Pygmalion he treats her like an object or an experiment the whole time and never shows even a hint of consideration for her feelings. He only wants her because he wants her, know what I mean? What she wants or how she feels (which she clearly articulates to him several times) isn't important to him.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke's POS character in Reality Bites

I have no knowledge about the play or Pygmalion, but as far as the film goes, seeing as the relationship was always toxic, I've always felt that the ending remains true to that toxicity and the co-dependency that was (is?) present through many relationships, especially in past times. Have they both changed? Can they change?

But it's definitely a very tight rope and a very polarizing decision for the screenwriters.

Actually, everyone wanted the ending changed to a happy one where they end up together. Even if it flies in the face of the intent of the original story/play. People staging the play were constantly making cute little changes to imply the possibility of a happy ending.

The whole point is to put a twist on the myth, where a man literally makes a woman so that he can have sex with her. It's the height of creepy paternalistic control, with added yucky parent-child dynamics baked in.

The change that Eliza undergoes isn't her speech. It's the realization she has that people are basically assigned value by those around them. The kicker is that by (accidentally) enabling this epiphany/self-realization, Higgins has created a woman strong enough to walk away from those who would demean her (like, um, HIGGINS).

Her going back to him could be a powerful statement about toxic relationships or co-dependency. But people who have adapted the play have been pretty blunt about them ending up together being a happy ending to make the audience happy, because in a romantic comedy the lead lady has to end up with the lead dude.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

last night i watched the last letter from your lover , gosh amazing love story movie <3

Strange adjective to describe a beautiful love affair.

Can't believe people spend their time watching the overlong My Fair Lady when they could be watching the breezier (and sexier) Opening of Misty Beethoven, the superior (and sexier) Pygmalion adaptation.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Oh my God, you made me Google that on my work laptop :eek:

I warned you it was sexy, too sexy for work even. ;)


For real though, movie is really funny and really well shot. Metzger's visual style is always on point. His work is one of the easier (read: more dignified) entry points into golden age hardcore as a result.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Every time I watch Rear Window I hope that THIS time Grace Kelly will kick Jimmy Stewart's sorry a-- to the curb. Hasn't happened yet.

The man is in a wheelchair. Have some compassion. :(

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

To Catch a Thief - Frances is into John because she thinks he a cat burglar. John observes her rather bizarre kink a few times in the film, stating that it is a dubious basis for attraction. This is exhibited in the car chase (she has no stake in escape) in which she has to jam on the breaks to barely avoid hitting a pedestrian. This is all an adrenaline rush for her. She attempts to entice Robie by bedecking her bosom with baubles in a darkly lit room which features both, attempting to seduce him.



It doesn't help that Grant was 51 and that Kelly was 26, which makes the attraction seem juvenile. The whole youth-vs.-age battle wits betweenBrigitte Auber and Grace Kelly doesn't really fit, because they appear to be the same age (the Auber was, in fact, a year older). Danielle is alleged to be a teenager and Frances is apparently a year or two out of college. Meanwhile, the guy who looks (and is) old enough to have fathered both squirms in the background. I guess we're supposed to be rooting for Robie to pick the more age-appropriate girl, who is still apparently young enough (in terms of what we're told on-screen) to be his daughter.



Frances appears to be a bit of a flake and John just seems to "what the hell it" when she keeps falling into his lap.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Coppola's Dracula. Not the first one to do frame it as a romance, but when you call your film Bram Stoker's Dracula, you kinda claim to stay faithful to the book. You keep Dracula a monster, "the devil's architect". You don't Twilight it down with some big misunderstood romantic bloodsucker and a blood-drained victim falling in love with the bat monster who just seeks a lookalike of his old flame. Ew.

He’s not really an invalid. Only acting one.

Shocked to see such ableism in this thread. :(

As I recall, the first time I saw it, it was a beautiful love affair. The next time, I recall thinking that Yuri was abandoning his family to the tender mercies of the bolsheviks.

I guess I was influenced by my partner of that time, who wanted to rename the movie, "Snow and Sex".

Then I realized that much of the plot decorated the musical soundtrack (or vice versa?). Maybe it's time to see it again, but 3 hours is a long time to unravel Yuri's intentions. I'd be curious to see how a contemporary audience would react to this movie since it seems so dated in a lot of ways now.

“Ableism”? Is there such a word? Too lazy to find out.

As the non-romance theme of the movie is the Russian Revolution, obviously it’s going to look “dated”. Besides which, fairly sure there’s been a remake.

There was a remake on British TV, but it seems to have passed into the shadows without much notice. The 1965 one had a choice between being somewhat historical OR, a romance, framed by a historical period. As a choice for a script writer, I expect that, given a choice between dry history (brutal history at that) and a romance story, they chose the latter. Every story has to be set in some time frame and there aren't many that got set in the Russian Revolution, so they had a clear field for a script. By 1965, history and politics had equated Russian Revolution with bad so it's not just a tacky romance, but a "star crossed romance set in a turbulent time".....good ad copy if I do say so.

You’re describing this movie as having been dreamed up by the screenwriter. You do know it’s based on Pasternak’s novel? And it’s still not a “tacky romance” or “affair” no matter how many times you describe it as such.

I know it's a novel, but it fits into that somewhat strange category of historical fiction. When Pasternak wrote it, the setting of the story was still recent and well within living memory. To make things murkier, it was politicized historical fiction, was smuggled into the west, subjected to CIA meddling and denounced in the Soviet Union.

The movie has all the hallmarks of cinematic romanticism, in which characters, torn asunder by the sweeping changes of the revolution find some solace in true love, out in the steppes. They look really good in their well tailored clothes too...don't look much like political exiles. It has waiving fields of grain and big orchestral musical themes. After seeing the movie, way back when, I recall reading the book and being surprised at how comparatively unromantic it was. No Julie Christie and Omar Sharif.

The script writers made it into a romance and then did image and music to fit that.

i, too had mixed feeling about Grant and Russell in His Girl Friday...there was a definite chemistry between them, but like you said, I think it was more connected to their passion for the newspaper business. I don't think Grant had any interest in getting back together with Russell romantically until he finds out that she is engaged to Bellamy.

First of all, I have to say that I'm thrilled to learn that I'm not the only person on the planet who has seen this movie. I will say that don't think Hackman's character was a terrible person, but I never really believed that these two characters were really in love with each other,

It doesn't matter that they met before they were married and had children?

Nope. You shouldn't make vows to one person if you're already in love with someone else.
A vow is a vow.

Exactly. The romance seemed almost purely in response to a kind of "But that's MINE!" reaction to seeing her with another man.

Like, I will happily concede that I'm probably overthinking this, but don't you get the sense that they will continue to "cycle" this way--breaking up and then making up, but also hurting other people along the way?

Since Pasternak didn’t make movies (so far as I know), we have to accept the movie as is. Certainly without Julie Christie & Sharif (though I didn’t find him attractive) the movie wouldn’t have been the success it is.

As for “well-tailored clothes”, the only memorable clothes IMO were worn by Chaplin’s character who needed to be defined as bougie in order to show one contrast between pre- and post-1917.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Hunting & Gathering. Audrey Tautou is great and the movie had a certain charm to it, but the romance was such a disappointing bait-and-switch. Instead of the guy who was nice and gentle towards her from the start they pair Camille with his brother Franck who called her a queer the first second she entered the apartment. What??? Look... I get the connection, they both carry emotional baggage. But when her chemistry with Philibert was already much stronger, why not build upon that instead? You might think "Oh, maybe he's gay", but no he turns out to be crushing on a different woman instead. I don't know, it's just not what I expected and I don't like it. Still a decent watch overall.

I mean, Rhett and Scarlet were very obviously meant to end up back together narrative-wise, as we know from notes & other sources, except Margaret Mitchell was unfortunately run over by a cabbie. Hardly fitting to talk of that ending as “intentional”. Not to mention there’s part 2.

I think you’re totally right, but that makes it more interesting to me & true to human nature, as it were.

Part 2?

Obviously not by Mitchell and a very dubious exercise all in all, but it did draw on Mitchell’s notes, and all I was getting at is that it was crystal clear to everyone that she intended them to stay together. Had she lived, Rhett would have been won back after Scarlet had “thought about it”. That’s a very sequel-inviting way of ending a chapter.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlett_(Ripley_novel)

I’ve seen the adaptation of the above, but hardly remember anything at all.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

I couldn't imagine such a toxic relationship working out well, but who knows.

I mean, what does “well” entail? I think the couple in The War of the Roses were pretty happy, despite the drama. Some people crave toxicity.

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

Rhett and Scarlett are both extremely toxic people, so they definitely fit together. However, just because they complement each others' personalities doesn't mean they're happy. We see in Gone With The Wind just how damaging that kind of dynamic is, with Rhett deciding to leave Scarlett behind at the end.

On a more general note, I tend to root against most romances. I usually want the villain to get the girl. :lol:

So the only ones I root for are the ones where the villain (or antihero) sort of does…

It's certainly realistic (we all know those people who break up and make up several times a year!), but it doesn't mean I have to root for it!!

Indeed not! Wasn’t suggesting that at all.

I'm just referencing the title of the thread.

I think that there are many romances in movies that are realistic and reflect relationship dynamics that are unhealthy. They can be good movies and the portrayal of the relationships can be interesting, but you don't actually root for them to be together in the end.

Margaret and Frank in "M*A*S*H". Both the film and the series.

wait did they did M*A*S*H film?

It was a film made by Robert Altman before it was a TV series.

One that occurs to me: Anna Schmidt (Valli) and Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in The Third Man (1949).

Come to think of it Welles never had a cinematic lover that worked out too well....:cool:

really i only watched the tv series

The film was based on a 1968 novel. If you ever liked the TV series you really should watch the film. It's 10x better.

He’ll be back. :)

Exactly what I was saying!

They always come back, right?

i didnt know that.
i think i only watched few episodes of the tv series

Re: Romances you rooted against
 

I have a new one, which also raises some questions about how it was like in real life. Walk The Line.

Johnny Cash's obsessive pursuing of June Carter is very uncomfortable and creepy. She keeps rejecting and telling him no over and over and over again, and with such firmness in her voice every time that you feel really bad for her. So when the proposal comes at the end I felt so much at unease that I was begging for him to stop embarrassing her, but he doesn't budge and she feels forced to say "yes".

Or is that how it really was? Was June actually in love with Johnny too in real life? Despite how great both actors were in their roles, I never felt anything more than frustration and disappointment over Cash's stubbornness from June's side, while he was definitely in love but to unhealthy and destructive levels.

Nevertheless, with how it was depicted in the movie I did not root for them to be together. And the proposal scene was well-made and tense, but I didn't find it romantic whatsoever.

Loved this movie. Yes, they loved each other passionately, warts & all. Check out them singing on You Tube - they’re fun to watch.