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Frame Related #6: Love is in the air
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❤️ Our Favourite Romantic Films
The 14th of February is right around the corner, so whether or not you celebrate Valentine’s Day, we thought it would be fun to pick some of our favourite romantic movies to watch this month. And our choices are wonderfully eclectic, so you perhaps won’t have seen or heard about some of these…
Lost in Translation — Dan Perrin
My favourite rom-com has to be Sofia Coppola’s masterpiece Lost in Translation. Why do I like it so much? First and foremost, it’s about as far removed as a mainstream romantic movie can be, as the two characters differ in age massively: Bob (Bill Murray) is in his fifties, while Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is in her mid-twenties. Secondly, they don’t sleep together either, but have this major connection — and, for me, that’s what makes it so special. Throughout the film, we see these two lonely souls form a strong friendship — maybe leaning into something more — while spending a few days in the crazy city that is Tokyo.
A lot of people don’t get it and dismiss it as boring, but I think it’s just one of the most heartfelt and moving films ever made. The last scene when Murray whispers something to Charlotte as they embrace for the last time is just… chef’s kiss. You can’t hear a word, but their facial expressions speak volumes. A perfect ending if ever there was one.
10 Things I Hate About You — Jonathan 'Jono' Simpson
Remember when Hollywood was obsessed with adapting Shakespeare’s works to the big screen? Many attempts at modernising the convoluted language of his literary classics failed miserably. However, 10 Things I Hate About You succeeds where others stumbled. Gil Junger’s charming rom-com subverts the more problematic elements of The Taming of the Shrew, transforming it into a sharp, contemporary narrative that retains both humour and romance.
Taking place at Padua High School, Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is smitten with the effortlessly popular sophomore, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). Unfortunately, Bianca’s overprotective father forbids her from dating until her fiercely independent older sister, Kat (Julia Stiles), finds a suitor of her own. Cameron’s desperation for romance turns into a convoluted scheme as he bribes the rebellious Patrick (Heath Ledger) to take Kat to the prom. What begins as a transactional arrangement soon evolves into genuine affection as Patrick discovers that beneath Kat’s guarded exterior lies a captivating woman.
Marking the pivotal transition from television to cinema for a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception), 10 Things I Hate About You also showcases the fresh-faced Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) and Julia Stiles (The Bourne Identity). The chemistry between these two then-relatively-unknown actors brings a genuine and believable dynamic to their characters’ evolving relationship. Stiles perfectly embodies the combative and feisty nature of Kat, whereas Ledger exudes charisma and vulnerability as Patrick. Their scenes together are filled with witty repartee and heartfelt moments that keep the audience engaged and rooting for the romance to blossom. The introduction of these burgeoning talents underscores a fresh approach to teenage storytelling by skilfully combining contemporary sensibilities and classical influences. The 1990s often reduced the American adolescent experience to an endless cascade of apocalyptic perils. Yet, 10 Things I Hate About You embraces the spirit of John Hughes’ cinematic legacy. Much like The Breakfast Club (1985), there’s a stronger emphasis on a sincere and resonant portrayal of youthful torment for audiences to revel in its angst without resorting to gratuitous spectacle. It defined a generation of teenagers and its timeless charm continues to be rediscovered more than two decades later.
Moonstruck — Alexander Boucher
There’s a scene towards the end of Moonstruck in which lovesick Ronny (Nicolas Cage) stands on a cold New York City street, urging Loretta (Cher) to reconsider her notion of love. “We are here to ruin ourselves”, he cries, “and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die”. Ronny is emphatic, and Loretta couldn’t hide her smile if she tried. It is the most impassioned moment in a film of smouldering fires and misunderstandings, passion simmering on a back burner while life knocks you into a domestic position that you never saw for yourself.
Do we get that final combustion in real life, when someone like Ronny and Loretta realise they can’t contain the fire any longer? Some do, some don’t — but the magic of Moonstruck is that anything feels possible when the stars align and the moon is full; it’s a film of luck, about the decision to bet it all or walk away from the table. We’ll all end up on the losing end in life in some regard, but Moonstruck reminds us that we’re bound to lust and love — baring our souls and risking everything in its service.
Marriage Story — Barnaby Page
Films about love and relationships are as variegated as love and relationships themselves — from the boy-meets-girl fairy tales (a charming, joyous recent example is 2023’s Rye Lane) to the more emotionally mixed, often tragedy-tinged sagas of couples over a longer period (epitomised well by last year’s We Live in Time, where fine acting and writing, as well as a non-linear narrative structure, add some freshness to what’s basically an old-fashioned weepie). Another outstanding example in the latter category, a film I’ve only just discovered, is Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet (2011), a slow-burn, beautifully shot and impeccably-acted three-hander where an unexpected incident in the lives of backpacking couple Gael García Bernal and Hani Furstenberg threatens to tear them apart. Audiences were divided on it but critics generally adored it, and I’ve become one of them. It’s rare to find a film where a single glance, a single phrase half-spoken and then pulled back, can be not just so meaningful but also so completely believable; and rare, too, to find one that acknowledges how closely less exalted emotions can dwell alongside love.
My Valentine’s Day choice for this year, though, is a movie that achieves similar things in an even more extreme context: Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story (2019). It might seem perverse to choose for Valentine’s a movie that’s about the end of a relationship (Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson’s characters are mid-divorce as it begins), but really what you remember from Marriage Story isn’t the arguments (furious, and occasionally hysterically funny, as they are), it’s the tenderness that persists between the protagonists. The marriage might not have worked, but the strengths of the relationship are not completely dissolved; the most dramatic fight between them is followed, in fact, by a friendly discussion on decorating Driver’s new, solo apartment.
It seems clear they will remain friends, and Marriage Story perhaps offers a quiet challenge to the conventional “love story” by implying that there are ways to love without being head-over-heels about it. Or, as I wrote at the time: “Amor vincit omnia, just not always in the way that we anticipate. For all that it deals with a wrenchingly miserable episode in its main characters’ lives, Marriage Story is a profoundly optimistic film, and an unassuming masterpiece.”
Past Lives — Conall McManus
In Celine Song’s debut feature Past Lives, grief, time, memory, identity, and love all co-mingle. We can’t entirely be sure where one ends and the other begins. Feelings are shown to be difficult (if not impossible) to categorise definitively. Love is boldly depicted as a chance occurrence, as the consequence of the many arbitrary choices we make in life. Yet, at the same time, it’s shown to be so much more: whether you would call it fate, or the ineffable and indescribable aspect of the human experience, some things in life elude us.
Song’s haunting exploration of forgotten loves was undeniably one of the best films from 2023. However, more than that, Past Lives is arguably one of the best romance films of the 21st-century, imbuing a universal experience — lost loves and forgotten sweethearts — with an immense personal significance that strikes right at the viewer’s core. There’s a preoccupation with earnest affection and sincere longing, not lust or carnal desire.
As a result, there’s an existential component to Past Lives: how many times in one life do you think you met your true love? Can there ever really be such a thing? And are all of our romances destined to be lived out through eternity, from our future selves back in time to our past lives? Song may not provide a concrete answer to this question (after all, no one truly can), but she does depict two long-lost lovers musing on these questions with a startling honesty, one that will stay with you long after the credits roll.
Mississippi Masala — Quinn Francis
Mira Nair’s indie favorite Mississippi Masala is a rare romance. Combining unique cultural histories, this steamy 1991 film stars Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury as star-crossed lovers in the Deep South. Even 34 years on, love stories depicting interracial couples are tragically rare, almost as rare as those depicting working-class people — and this film does both. Choudhury plays the daughter of a motel owner who falls for a handsome carpet cleaner (Washington) and must choose between staying loyal to her family or following her heart. Nair’s refined screenplay and deft camera work make full and lush what could otherwise be heavy-handed and melodramatic. This isn’t a film that moralizes to its audience, it empathizes with its characters. And the chemistry between the two leads rivals any big-budget studio offering in the genre before or since its release.
Ball of Fire — Remy Dean
I love screwball comedies and, of them all, Ball of Fire is one I’ve returned to often since seeing it as a teenager in an after-school television slot showing classic ‘star movies’. My idea of romance was still naïve and rather sweet so, rewatching it takes me back to those hopeful days of ennui and innocence.
What a screen couple Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper made. Neither ever again struck the comedy-romance balance more perfectly than they do here. Of course, they start like chalk and cheese. Sugarpuss O’Shea (Stanwyck) is a burlesque performer with a gangland fiancé and Bertram Potts (Cooper) is a linguistics professor living in a big old house with seven other fuddy-duddies compiling an encyclopaedia. It’s inspired by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but more ‘Fiery Red and the Seven Professors.’ (Except there are eight and Potts is just shy of 6'3'’.)
Hoping to expand his understanding of contemporary slang, he enlists Sugarpuss to share her colourful parlance. She agrees only because their house is a perfect hideout from the law and gangland rivals. Naturally, she’s developing feelings for Potts when her fiancé, Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews) hastens their marriage arrangements, not for love but because a wife cannot testify against her husband… but will she or won’t she give up a life of glitzy gangster glamour?
Ball of Fire does everything so many screwball rom-coms fail at — being genuinely comedic and romantic. Which shouldn’t be surprising given the calibre of the cast and crew. It’s helmed by Howard Hawks, one of the directors who defined the screwball genre with Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940), and co-written by Billy Wilder, responsible for another of the great late examples of the genre, Some Like it Hot (1959). Cooper and Stanwyck had just worked together in Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe (1941) where they established a more serious rapport that perhaps lends an extra layer to their relationship here.
🎟 Global Box Office: January 2025
In January 2025, the global box office was $2.8BN, a 32% increase from the previous year. However, it was 12% lower than the average of the three years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Mufasa: The Lion King — $197M
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 — $151M
- Moana 2 — $90M
- Nosferatu — $71M
- Wicked — $38M
- Gladiator II — $16M
- A Complete Unknown — $14M
- Wolf Man — $9M
- A Real Pain — $7M
- 366 Nichi — $6M
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