Romantic Cinema

In honor of today's marketing holiday, here are a few of my favorite romantic movie scenes and why they struck a chord.

The red wagon scene, Eternal Sunshine

Childhood memories are a natural part of the relationship process- reliving those earliest, most painful and most joyful moments for the benefit of your significant other learning exactly who you are, how you came to be that way.

Eternal Sunshine has my favorite iteration of this experience.

Clementine relives Joel’s humiliating memory of being peer pressured into smashing a dead bird in a little red wagon with a hammer. Instead of listening to the story, she’s there. A 5-year-old Clem is there with 5-year-old Joel, kneeling at the red wagon, leading him away by the hand, forgiving him when he can’t forgive himself and telling him that his friends' approval isn't worth it.

A companionship that empathizes with these memories, then erases them.

The cello scene, Mona Lisa Smile

In Mona Lisa Smile, I thought Connie Baker was the most loveable character. A little pudgy and very innocent, Connie lives vicariously through her more exciting friends. She doesn’t think much of herself and definitely doesn’t view herself as beautiful, edgy, particularly smart (in this crowd), or wife material.

When a friend sets her up with a date to the school dance “as a favor,” she’s bowled over when Charlie shows real interest in her.

Later in the school year, she’s alone in a dark hall of one of Wellesley’s buildings, practicing her cello when Charlie appears in the doorway. “I hitched a ride with Tommy, who came to see Joan,” he says. “Why?” she asks. “So I could do this (kisses her).”

End of Messiah Kings scene, Wristcutters (*spoiler alert*)

This is a dark comedy that I would suggest watching all the way through. Wristcutters focuses on Zia, a twenty-something who committed suicide and ended up in a different world exactly like life, except no one can smile and everything’s a little bit worse. He works a terrible job, has a sensitive roommate and is haunted by memories of his ex-girlfriend, Desiree.

Things start looking up when he realizes that he wouldn’t take Desiree back, even if that were possible; that he had fallen in love with the girl that was by his side all along. Finding hope in unexpected places is terribly romantic.

The tree scene, the Lake House

I know, I know. This movie is terrible and generic, and Keanu Reeves looks as confused and emotionally blank in a turtleneck sweater as he does in anything else, but I promise it has two redeeming features: a fantastic house, and a great romantic scene based on a tree.

The tree scene begins with Sandra leaning into the wispy curtains of her city apartment, reminiscing about the trees of the lake house, quietly longing for an escape from Chicago and the where she works. She casually mentions this to Keanu in one of their time-travelling letters.

Keanu stares blankly out of his office as a great piano song implies his emotions. He thoughtfully packs a seedling tree from his construction site into the back of his beat-up, robin’s-egg-blue pickup truck and drives to Chicago, where he plants it at the apartment complex where Sandra will live two years later.

It’s the selfless gesture that got me- doing something without being asked for no immediate reward, just to make her feel like she’s home.

Necklace scene, The Illusionist

It’s really heart-wrenching to watch this incredibly vulnerable scene of two pre-teens making promises before knowing how to keep them. Eisenheim and Sophie stand in a field glowing with sunlight; their freckled faces sweetly anxious and turned toward each other, before he gives her a wooden locket that he crafted, creating a symbolic link between social castes.

Just a Girl scene, Notting Hill

Another guilty pleasure movie favorite of mine (inward cringe) does have that one keeping-it-real scene, which is my favorite part of the film.

World-famous movie star Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) finally realizes how terrible she’s been to Will Thacker (Hugh Grant) and humbly shows up to his travel book shop with the original of his favorite painting. She apologizes for her shortcomings and urges him to look past who she is, what she’s done and realize that she’s “just a girl, asking a boy to love her.”

Apple peel scene of Sleepless In Seattle

Somehow, Sam (Tom Hanks) convinces everyone that his wife, Maggie, was the perfect wife and mother by recalling the way she seamlessly peeled an apple in one, long strip.

I suppose I’m fascinated with this because people in love can make the most mundane details seem extraordinary, which would be a great writing trick (except that I’m not in love with engineering, sorry, but it’s true).

Feel free to share your favorite cheesy romantic movie/movie scene here. I won't judge.