Last Valentine’s Day, we talked about ultraromantic movies (and feel free to continue to add to that list). This year, let’s do the opposite:
What are some great anti–Valentine’s Day movies?
Of course there are all sorts of movies about people behaving badly in their romantic relationships — I’m sure plenty of those will get named here — but I’m going in a gentler direction with my pick: the lovely Frances Ha, which celebrates a deep and close female friendship as the most central of the women’s lives, even though they are both heterosexual. It’s a terrific movie that doesn’t deny that romance is very important to many people, but that plenty of others find similar fulfillment elsewhere.
Your turn…
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I haven’t seen Grosse Pointe Blank in years, but my recollection is that it’s just romantic enough to count as a Valentine’s Day movie but dark and twisted enough to count as the opposite.
Good call, Daniel (though I think GPB falls apart in its ending – in part because nobody could write an ending that worked, but they ended up half-arsing it).
Some romcom-adjacent films that do a good job of breaking the standard romance tropes for me:
I said pretty much this same thing in my review!
I love Destination Wedding too.
I vote for the horror comedy Ready or Not. On her wedding night, Grace is asked to play a game of hide and seek with her new in-laws. She soon finds out that their wealth comes from a demonic bargain and they plan to sacrifice her. It’s 90 minutes of useless rich people trying to perform a Satanic ritual while getting clowned on by an almost Xena level badass. It ends with a sarcastic cover of “Love Me Tender.” Can’t recommend enough.