The day of love, hearts, mush and everything perfect is here. Over the years, Valentine's Day has become a synonym for showing your love to your significant other and a major role has been played by our films. From red heart balloons to red satin dresses and cheesy dialogues, romantic films have become a must to complete the Valentine's Day celebration.
While Love Actually, Notting Hill, Pretty Woman, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge are favourites to watch on the 'Love-Day', thanks to their fairy tale endings, let's take a route less common. On this Valentine's Day, News18 brings to you a list of films that portrayed romance in not-so-perfect way, because love in every form deserves to be celebrated.
La La Land
No better movie to begin the list than La La Land. One of the best movies made in recent times, this Oscar-nominated film of 2016, showed the real-life struggles in the most magical way possible. Two dreamers, Mia and Sebastian decide to follow their aspirations and end up separately in life, telling us that all those who love each other and be with each other through the perils of a struggling life, might not end up together to taste the success in later part of the life.
500 Days of Summer
An all-time favourite of one-sided Romeos and Juliets, 500 Days of Summer perfectly summarises the emotion of one -sided love with lots of satire and humour (unlike KJo's ADHM). The film tells the story of Tom who falls hopelessly in love with Summer, who treats their relationship like a fling. Unlike other romances where Summer might have realised her 'eternal love' for Tom who is obsessing over her, 500 Days focuses on the real aspect of love where one might not fall in love as passionately as the other. In the end, Tom too ends up moving on, keeping it real and not-so -mushy.
Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
Another film with not-so-perfect ending is Michel Gondry's classic love-story Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Joel and Clementine decide to erase each other from their minds after their messy breakup but end up finding each other at every turn. The film played on the theme of true love but the way both of them deal with their frequent break-ups and patch up is way too real. This film is a bible for all those couples who have a long history of break ups and patch upa, maybe, like Joel and Clementine they should take a break too, with all the good and bad memories etched in their minds and leave it to live to bring them together.
Before Series
The classic love series- Before Sunrise- Before Sunset and Before Midnight- is one of the most real love stories ever made. Keeping even the time-zone real every film was released after a gap of nine years with the same cast. Depicting the meaning and understanding of love in three different stages of life, before series give an insight into the deepest, more complex aspect of love. Jesse and Celine are two completely different individuals with different lives in different continents and different approach towards love. Their conversation is real yet idealist in nature and that is the beauty of this series. While you might not find an Ethan Hawke lookalike in a train to spend the rest of your life understanding love, the Before series captures love at its real-best without any 'sparkle'.
Casablanca
There's a reason this Michael Curtiz's masterpiece is regarded as a classic. The romantic-drama starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as Rick and Ilsa, was a tale of heartbreak and deciding what's right. Although the film was patronising in many ways but considering the times of 1940's, it explained that true love is in doing the right thing for the person without keeping yourself first. The way Rick does the right thing for Ilsa and the entire anti-Nazi operation shows why he's a good man at heart. Casablanca captures the feeling of sacrifice, something which not all romantic-drama showcase fearing a heartbreaking ending.
My Best Friend's Wedding
At one point or another, we all have best friends stories that force us to love. Be it Rachel and Ross from Friends or Rahul and Anjali from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. While Bollywood is still a long shot away from understanding the concept of 'friendzone' in a good way, Julia Robert's My Best Friend's Wedding captured the feeling of a best friend's possessiveness and the confusing aspect of love accurately. Julianne Potter and Michael O'Neal are best friends who dated in college and have an agreement to marry each other if they don't meet anyone till 28. Days before her 28th birthday Julianne learns that Micheal is getting married and her fight to get the attention of his best friend begins. While many may confuse the ending with sacrificing love, it is actually her own selfish ego that Julianne lets go in the end to become a better and more mature person.
Ek Main Aur Ek Tu
Probably the only Bollywood film in the list, Ek Main Aur Ek Tu handles the concept of romance very tactically. The romantic-comedy is a story of a happy-go lucky Raina and a perfectionist Rahul. Rahul falls in love with Raina's way of living and handling life, and after a night of drinking, both end up marrying each other. In the process of getting annulled, Rahul falls in love with Raina while she continues to see him as her friend. The film touches upon the delicate line between friendship and the understanding of love for the opposite sex. Instead of following the typical route of friendship turning into love and happily ever after, the film ends with Raina and Rahul maintaining their friendship and staying happy in their respective lives. Perhaps this is the closest a Bollywood rom-com has got to depicting new age love stories.
While the world idealizes a happy ending in every romance, life always has other plans and it feels good when filmmakers find time and make films on the real, not-so-perfect edges of love. This Valentine's Day let's embrace the real-life love situations depicted on reel.
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