Today is Saint Valentine’s Day, so what else could we talk about this week but this:
What’s the most romantic movie you’ve ever seen?
My choice is easy: Truly, Madly, Deeply, the 1990 romantic dramedy in which Juliet Stevenson is helped over the recent death of boyfriend by… his ghost (Alan Rickman). It’s an infinitely wise, moving, and — yes — funny movie about love, life, grief, and the ineffable sadness of moving on. (This movie could also have been my response to last week’s question, What’s the hardest or longest you’ve ever cried at a movie or TV show?)
Truly, Madly, Deeply is also infinitely better than that phony sapfest Ghost; the two films are another instance of movies with similar themes and plots popping up at the same time. (Ghost was released in the US in summer 1990, and TMD debuted at London Film Festival that autumn. )
If you need some inspiration for your own answer, check out TimeOut’s recent rundown of “the 100 best romantic films of all time” (Truly, Madly, Deeply is not on the list and Ghost is, which is criminal.)
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I’m always seeing lists of books I’m supposed to have read and films I’m supposed to have seen in order to show that I’m, I guess, a cultured person. There are usually about 100 titles on the list, and I’ve usually seen somewhere around 27. I’m neurotic enough that I always feel vaguely guilty about this.
Today I saw three different lists of the best romantic movies of all time, in honor of that holiday. My favorite was the AV Club list, because it was the oddest and shortest. In every case, I’d seen, give or take, at least half the films, and sometimes significantly more.
Apparently I like romantic comedies.
I was expecting to pick a movie for this question that didn’t show up on any of the lists, but it looks as though there are a lot of critics whose taste is as strange as mine, and they picked a number of films that aren’t obviously romantic comedies, including my favorite film, Harold and Maude.
I suppose if I really wanted to show my subversive credits, I could choose something really disturbing, like Thelma and Louise or, if I really wanted to shock people, Garden State. But I’m going to go with a film that showed up on pretty much every list.
Like most of my favorite romantic comedies, this film demonstrates that love is hard work, but it does it in the most idealistic, fairy tale way possible. There are battles with thieves and pirates and journeys across the ocean. Mostly, the pirates and thieves are fighting on the side of true love.
You probably figured out which film I meant as soon as you saw my name, but I’m talking about The Princess Bride, and I can explain why in three words that are unusually, maybe stupidly, sentimental* for me: “As you wish.”
*But if you want cynicism, read the last page or two of the novel, but even that’s romantic, in its own William Goldmanish way.
After years of intending to see it, my wife and I finally saw Truly, Madly, Deeply tonight, and it is indeed a lovely, lovely film. Juliet Stevenson is marvelous. A much more emotionally honest story about love and grief than Ghost, for sure. (I’m also remembering Always, from around the same era, which is again about a ghost letting his beloved go on to live her life, though I’m fuzzy on the details or whether it was any good. It was Spielberg, so… technically brilliant, but also sappy?)
Truly, Madly, Deeply was directed by Anthony Minghella, though for sweeping, aching, dizzying romance my answer would probably be a later film of his: The English Patient.
Depends on my mood, but my top five are typically:
1) Last Year at Marienbad – one of the few films to truly earn the adjective “dream-like”
2) Heathers – problematic and cruel, but perfectly captures the “it’s us against the world” teen outcast angst
3) Chunking Express – I want to go to there, my favorite Wong Kar-wai flick, also reminds me of the Mondo Grosso Labyrinth video which gives me that romantic “alone and free in a crowded city” feeling.
4) Raising Arizona – You bet I do! Okay then.
5) Annie Hall – Allen should be sitting in prison with Cosby, but this is still a brilliant movie.
Honorable Mentions:
6) Edward Scissorhands – more for the romantic ambiance and mood than the boy-girl relationship
7) Only Yesterday – nice to see a romantic story about a middle-aged woman although she falls in love with the countryside moreso than the dude. Relaxed with a unique soundtrack.
8) When Marnie Was There – not really a romance per se, yet still a very romantic movie in the sense of Rousseau’s romantic Naturalism.
9) Wolf Children – the only Hosoda film to get me in the feels – the daughter’s romantic fears and hesitation are very relatable, and I love the playing in the snow scene.
10) Before Sunset – the entire trilogy is nice – the OG conversation is the best. For me, exchanging ideas and perspectives will always be sexier than solely swapping smoulder, spit, and semen.
11) Groundhog Day – the romance is too one-sided and Rita is too idealized; however, it presents one of the most valuable romantic life lessons of any film
12) Woman in the Dunes – deeply sexist, embraces the woman as mysterious fuckdoll trope that typifies much of Japanese fiction and culture, but the cinematography, direction, and sound design are masterful and the struggle between intellectual and primal desires is universal.
13) Run Lola Run – One of the few films in which the woman drives the action to rescue her boyfriend – a gimmicky flick done right, and her runs through the city are filled with the exaggerated swagger of a twenty-something German riot grrrl.
Before Sunset, with a special nod to Nina Simone.The trilogy is unsurpassable. Also sex lies and videotape. Love and Basketball. The Big Easy. Beast. Autumn’s Emma. There are fewer than you think. But the gems glow hot for all time.
Clearly amanohyo disagrees, along with TimeOut and everyone else who put together a “best of all time” list.