A reformed film-goer: I love the RomCom

I used to love dark and moody films that explored the very heart of the human condition.  If I came out of a cinema with mascara streaked everywhere, having used up every tissue in my handbag, and possibly even having sobbed so loudly I’d actually disturbed other theatre-goers, I generally felt I’d seen a good film. 

One particular favourite was Shadowlands, a masterful film about the relationship between C.S Lewis and Joy Gresham.  It is sad.  So very very sad.  Anthony Hopkins would be compelling reading a takeaway menu, but in this film he didn’t just tug at my heartstrings, he ripped them right out of my chest.  I sobbed so loudly that my companions looked genuinely alarmed. 

Breaking the Waves was another favourite for a while, if I can use the word “favourite” to describe a film in which the main character suffers indescribably distressing emotional and physical harm.  I won’t go into details, suffice to say it is not a film for the family to gather around and watch on Christmas Day.  Still, I thought it was an amazing piece of cinema.

The tide started to turn once I had children, and thereafter couldn’t watch films in which children suffered.  Understandable, I think, as its hard not to empathise very closely with said suffering children once your primary goal in life is to protect the wellbeing of your own offspring.   Then I started openly admitting that I loved films like Love Actually (which did have its own moments of heartbreak, but they were real and authentic – Emma Thompson’s private tears at the realisation of her husband’s betrayal were a case in point and a master class in understated grief and bloody good acting) but these were wrapped up in a delicious layer of love and romance and comedy and Hugh Grant.

Then Kate Winslet started to make a run for an Oscar, and turned out two depressing and in my opinion rather ordinary films in a row – Revolutionary Road and The Reader.  Critics and audiences swooned over both offerings, and I duly trotted along, only to leave the cinema on both occasions feeling like I’d been duped.  I have decidedly mixed feelings about Ms Winslet, and to be frank I felt that those four hours could have been better spent doing something that was actually enjoyable,  because the films themselves were not. 

I appreciate that there is a place in the world for films that examine both the role of German POW camp guards in World War II, and the universal theme of a marriage mired in domestic drudgery and suburban frustration.  I just don’t think that particular place is going to be in front of my eyeballs, at least not anymore. 

From now on when I step into a cinema I want to be thrilled, entertained, amused, informed, taken on a journey, or just kept content for a couple of hours.  I am perfectly happy with films with a sad theme – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a case in point.  The subject of the film was after all a man with Locked-In Syndrome, a perfectly healthy mind trapped in a motionless body after a catastrophic stroke, but the film itself was incredibly beautiful, moving, genuine, and surprisingly uplifting. 

So, last night this gradual evolution in film taste bought me to The Proposal, the latest box office hit from Sandra Bullock.  Sandra is a comedic actress who knows her strengths, and sticks to her knitting.  She does the romantic comedy over and over, and mostly pulls it off.  Take one man and one woman, throw in a plot device that causes intense dislike between them to fester, bring in another plot device to force them to spend more time together than they like, and voila, love will blossom.  Cue plot device that will apparently tear them apart, just as they realise their true feelings for each other, throw in a quick scurry across town/country/New York traffic/all of the above, and hey presto, love is declared (preferably in front of a crowd) and we all live happily ever after. 

Add a friend and a glass of wine and you have my idea of a good night out.  Who knew I could be so easily satisfied?