L'amour au Cinéma (Love in Film)
“Especially when you're younger, you think these idealized and somewhat unrealistic standards from film to be true: we envision fairytale romances and meet cutes for ourselves.”
When you watched romance movies as a kid, you would be cuddled up into your warm fuzzy blanket. The television captured your attention, and with every dreamy scene that unfolded, you’d think about how excited you were to experience this all for yourself. For most people, romance movies are what especially influence the way they view love. From forbidden romantic rendezvous to romantic escapades, from heartbreak to unrequited love; we unintentionally hold notions of how such cinematic moments may apply in real life. Especially when you're younger, you think these idealized and somewhat unrealistic standards from film to be true: we envision fairytale romances and meet cutes for ourselves.
In our article we want to dissect the different ways that romance films portray love. Along with that, we would like to get the perspective of seniors on if they believe those movies show romance in a realistic or idealized way. We also want to know how they feel love or their perception of love evolved or devolved over the years. We’ll discuss movies like “Call Me By Your Name,” “LaLa Land,” “The Notebook,” “He's Just Not That Into You,” and “500 Days Of Summer” to understand how love is portrayed in film and how such lessons can tie into real life understanding of what is realistic and unrealistic.
Call Me By Your Name
In “Call Me By Your Name”, after spending a passionate summer together in the countryside of Italy, Elio and Oliver grow romantic feelings for each other. In Oliver's stay at Elio’s villa, they get close and develop a deep connection to one another. Towards the end, when Oliver returns to the U.S, Elio is heartbroken that he left. Later, Oliver calls Elio’s family to tell them he's engaged to a woman. Elio cries and his mother asks him, “is it better to speak or to die.”
In the film there's a distinction between speaking up about your feelings — no matter the consequences — or keeping your feelings to yourself. There's a bit of a contradiction because there is suffering in both choices. Whether you speak or not, you would “die” in some way. Some seniors said that this is realistic in the complexities love has. One senior said: “love is a lot of things and it's mostly conflict. Some movies show the honeymoon side of love but it's more than that. There's a lot of nuance, it's not all black and white.” Love is vulnerable and it shows in the romance and heartbreak aspects of some movies.
La La Land
In “La La Land,” Mia and Seb can't seem to stay away from each other, even prior to meeting each other. Their connection is what some call “Invisible string” (a reference to Taylor Swift's song “Invisible string” about the Japanese Red String theory). Mia is an aspiring actress, and Seb is a jazz pianist, trying to make a jazz club. When they meet, they have major chemistry and keep bumping into each other unintentionally over the course of a few days. Soon they start dating while trying to reach their dreams together.
Everything is smooth sailing in terms of their relationship but in terms of reaching their dreams, they were not getting anywhere. Mia tries to open conversation about Seb’s aspirations, as she believes he isn't happy the way he is right now, and that he gave up on his dreams to open a jazz club. They start arguing, Seb accuses her of being happier when he wasn't successful because it made her feel good about herself. Later, Mia put on a one woman show, but the turn out wasn't good. Fed up, she feels stagnant and unsuccessful and hastily quits acting for good. She goes back to her hometown. Seb gets a call from a casting director that attended her show and they want Mia to audition for an upcoming play. He goes to her hometown and finds her, and he convinces her to audition.
During a time skip of 5 years, it shows that Mia is a well known actress with a different husband and kids. On a date with her husband, they go to a jazz club which Mia shortly realizes is Sebastian's jazz club. Mia and Seb smile at each other and Mia leaves with her husband.
At the end of the film, it's understood that they left on good terms to pursue their dreams and still have deep love for each other. One senior said this was very realistic: “It's very normal that you meet someone and click. That one person you see everywhere you go, so much so that it feels like fate. Sometimes when you're in a relationship, things end on good terms for the sake of your mental health and future. It hurts a lot to go from close to strangers with your significant other, but when you heal, it doesn't feel good or bad. It feels okay. I think the ending really encapsulated that.”
Another senior said: “Some love is like how it is in the movies, but I will admit, romance movies made me feel like love would be a lot nicer than it is now. I thought it was going to be some significant, extremely romantic thing, it isn't. I think sometimes I will still get that when I'm older but other times I'm not sure.'' Some students still believe that they have a great love in store for them, but that it does seem unattainable.
The Notebook
Similarly in “The Notebook”, the romance follows a young couple who fall hard for each other. Allie and Noah spend a sweet summer together, but Allie's parents don't approve of their relationship. Allie's mother forbids them from seeing each other, and Allie breaks up with Noah suddenly and regrets it immediately. Allie’s mother moves her away. When Noah hears, he tries to see her but it's too late. When she's gone, he writes her letters every day, but Allie's mother hides them from her.
Years go by and Noah and Allie find their way back to each other. They still love each other very much and decide to spend the rest of their lives together. In a time skip to their elderly selves, they die peacefully in each other's arms.
Seniors say that when they watched ‘The Notebook’ at a young age, they expected to have the most epic love story and that they would have a “fairy-tale ending.” In some ways, movies portray the tumultuous relationship between a couple well, but it's the romances that are “off.”
A senior says that love these days isn't as romantic as it was back then: “Everyone is afraid to love and be loved nowadays. People don't know where their loyalty lies and betrayal is so common now because of that.”
There's a sense of grief when thinking about their younger selves who believed in this idealized version of love: “I missed being excited for love. It seems like a dead-end to expect even half of the romances you’d find in movies. Love felt like something beautiful to me when I was younger, now it just feels gone.”
He’s Just Not That into You
“He’s Just Not That Into You” Explores the struggles of relationships following 11 main characters who are all connected in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. The story does follow all characters, but the character with the most impact in the movie is Gigi who constantly keeps going on dates with guys and misreading romantic signals.
A big theme and learning lesson Gigi and watchers should learn is that if a guy really likes you, you will know. Main character and love interest Alex expresses to Gigi: “If a guy is treating you like he doesn't give a shit, he genuinely doesn't give a shit. No exceptions.”
This ties in with the other major lesson that “You’re Not the Exception, You’re the Rule.” The thought of being the expectation gets passed down by women who are going based on experiences that chances are 1 in a million to happen where the guy did pick her. This gives women unrealistic standards about being the expectation not the rule, when that in fact does not happen to everyone.
The movie teaches us that women should stop listening to man-made views like “if a guy is mean to you he probably likes you.” This saying is often told to young girls and it is constantly being repeated as they grow up, implying to women that, if a man treats you badly, it's okay because at the very least it means he likes you. Ironically enough, this is a rom-com, so Gigi eventually ends up with Alex.
500 Days of Summer
“500 Days of Summer” is the most unromantic rom-com. The movie literally starts by telling watchers that this is not a love story but a story about love. We get introduced our main character Tom who’s always been in love with the idea of love. Tom meets summer (Typical Manic Pixie Dream Girl). Summer is Tom’s dream ideal girl whom he instantly falls for.
As Tom and Summer start forming a romantic relationship, Summer expresses that she doesn’t want a serious relationship and would just like to keep things causal — what one would call friends with benefits. Throughout the movie we see Tom fall more and more for Summer, and eventually Tom just isn’t fine with the idea that Summer just doesn’t feel the same about him.
Since this rom-com is a bit different from others based on the fact that the main character is a man, we see very sexist ways of thinking. If the movie was about a women and these problems were towards a male love interest, it would be just like any other rom-com. We follow Tom trying to understand and victimizing himself about why Summer just won’t want him back, but then us viewers miss a very important part — that Summer told Tom about her intentions from the start. It was Tom who didn’t respect her wishes.
Summer eventually does find someone who changed her view of relationships, and her and Tom have a very heart to heart conversation, and they both move on from the situation. Just as the movie is ending we see Tom meeting a new girl named Autumn and showing the same signs as he once did with Summer, and then the movie comes to an ending, allowing viewers to interpret what happens next — although it is very likely that Tom did not learn his lesson and history will repeat itself once again.
After dissecting slowly and carefully all romantic movies we hope you can now watch these movies with different, more open mindsets, understanding each film’s perception of love and the important life lessons that we can learn from them.