My Favorite Love Flicks

Struggling with finding worth-watching love/romance movies for the weekend? Worry no more, I got you!

Love movies are fun. Especially for guys and gals of my age, love movies provide a portal for escaping the rigid realities of this life. Irrespective of the vast variety, be it poems, novels, plays or movies, anything with the genre ‘Love’ labelled on it, always helps in soothing our imaginative demons.

Moreover, it is not a hidden truth anymore that teenagers and people in their early and mid-20s are most prone to this love enigma. Some are struggling with finding the right ones, a few ones are trying to forget their loved ones whereas most of us are making a futile effort to stay away from this mostly-depressing, rarely-cheering feeling of love.

Nonetheless, this piece is not about love, I’m saving it for another day, rather this piece looks into some of my favorite love/romance movies.

Before I list my favorite love flicks, it is important to clear that I have prepared this list, mainly based on my biases, taste and liking (Apparent from the title as well) Also, there are a number of love/romance movies which would have found a spot on this list but I have disregarded them, mainly for two reasons. One, you guys must have already seen them i.e Titanic. Secondly, there are popular but they don’t resonate with my taste i.e The Notebook.

So, without wasting any time, let’s dive into the list.

500 Days of Summer:

Let me first address the elephant in the room; 500 Days of Summer. It is on this list for a plethora of reasons. First off, I am a big fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and I can’t remember any of his movies, which I don’t like. (I said the same thing in the last piece, I presume.)Secondly, 500 Days of Summer is not your average-sad-trivial melodrama. Although like all other love stories, it starts well(Setup), has a topsy-turvy mid(Confrontation), and a sad ending(Resolution), yet it doesn’t have a sad ending at all, if one looks too closely.

500 Days of Summer is an original, ‘offbeat romantic comedy’, which tells the story of an architect-turned-greeting cards writer Tom, who falls in love with this girl, named Summer, who doesn’t believe in relationships or boyfriends. Weird? Yeah, she is just like that. Tom, on the other hand, is another hopeless romantic, not ready to give up on Summer and even encapsulates himself in a cage of depressed-reality, when she breaks up with him.

However, when I say 500 Days of Summer is ‘different, original or unique’, I’m not talking about the story of the movie, rather I am considering the way this movie has created a deconstruction of the ‘manic pixie dream girl’.

Don’t get it? At first, I couldn’t either. Nonetheless, once you watch the movie, you’ll get what I’m talking about.

10 Things I Hate About You:

It is quite interesting that people love Heath Ledger but still, they don’t know about this movie. 10 Things I Hate About You was ‘breakthrough movie’ for Heath Ledger and if I were to rank his best performances, his role as Patrick Verona in 10 Things I Hate About You would take the third spot, only behind Joker of The Dark Knight and Ennis Del Mar of the Brokeback Mountain.

10 Things I Hate About You, a true late-90s classic, is centered on four High School students, Bianca, Kat, Cameron James and Patrick Verona. It goes like that Cameron James wants to date Bianca, which happens to be the younger sister of Kat. But Bianca’s father doesn’t allow her to date unless Kat does. Thus, James Cameron makes a plan to hook Kat, a rather ill-tempered girl, up with this guy, Patrick Verona, the bad boy. Saving you from more spoilers, this plan results in a lot of drama and romance, which is exactly what makes this movie worth-watching.

Another reason to like this movie is that this movie is inspired from the late 16th century Shakespeare’s play, The Taming of the Shrew. People have even labelled it as the ‘retelling’ of that particular play, which has certainly added more value to this particular film.

Silver Linings Playbook:

To be honest, when I thought of writing this piece, Silver Linings Playbook wasn’t even on my mind. But once, I started writing, it clicked. Thankfully, a bit of recalling saved me from missing out on this great picture.

Starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro among others, Silver Lining Playbook is indeed a great movie, ‘swinging between passionate highs and painful lows’ and leaving us all guessing what comes next.

Directed by David O. Russel, Silver Lining Playbook is a story of two problematic, rather eccentric individuals, Pat and Tiffany, and it revolves around their struggle to make peace with themselves and coexist with each other and those around them.

Additionally, it did great on the Box Office and bagged home a Oscar as well. (Not for the Best Picture though!)

La La Land:

Full disclosure: La La Land is the only movie on this list that I actually watched in a cinema. Interestingly, I was going through a heartbreak at that time so, in the backdrop of it, it felt even more great.

Directed by one of my favorite director, Damien Chazelle, La La Land tells the story of two individuals who are passionate about what they do. Starring two of my favorites, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, the movie was greeted with rapturous applause from both the critics and the audience. Also, it did great on the Box office and ‘almost’ won the Oscar for the Best Motion Picture of the Year.

The best thing about this movie is that it doesn’t simply disregard all other variables, like most love stories do. Instead, La La Land tells us a lot about how your career choices, your passion, your dreams might constraint yourself or prevent you from being with that one person, you love the most.

Moreover, I love La La Land because it is not like all these love stories, which alienate the lovers from their surroundings. Neither it is based on these cliched circumstances, where family or society doesn’t allow two people to love and co-exist, nor it ignores the real life problems. Instead, it discusses the constraints, which should be addressed and talked about more often.

Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind:

A couple of days ago, I was talking to a friend about my most favorite love/romance movie and the only movie I could think of was Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.

One might argue that it’s just another love story, aimed at deconstructing the ‘manic pixie dream girl’. Well, it indeed is. Nonetheless, this movie is not only centered on that manic pixie dream girl, rather it tells a far more passionate love story of two individuals, who don’t know how to forget each other, even when they desperately want to. And for me, that’s exactly the very essence of love.

You can’t simply erase the memories of your lover, even if you sincerely want to.

The most imperative reason for me to consider this movie as my favorite is that Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind literally changed our perspective of love stories. It gave us a whole new definition of a love/romance movie. I can’t remember any other movie, which impacted a certain genre the way Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind did. And for that we are grateful to Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondy, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet.

Honorable Mentions:

I have missed on a number of movies, I know. However, I still have a strong feelings that even if I do this another time, the above-mentioned movies would still end up finding the place on that list.

However, I don’t want to do any injustice to other great movies so, I have placed them in this ‘Honorable Mentions’ section. You can check them out as well, if you want to know.

Casablanca, A Walk to Remember, Sunset Trilogy, Pride and Prejudice, Her.