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.

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

Ha!...

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.

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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.

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.

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

Strange adjective to describe a beautiful love affair.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

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.

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

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.

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.

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Captain's Log
My Collection

The man is in a wheelchair. Have some compassion.

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.

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.