I’m sure there must be a bunch of these but can’t recall any off the top of my head:
What movies are there where it is strongly implied that a man and a woman are in love, but nothing is ever actually explicit about it? (i.e., no kissing, physical affection, nothing is said by them or anyone about love or feelings, etc.)
I scanned my personal Best Movies list and came up with some possible candidates, though none is spot-on:
Deja Vu, Good Thief, and possibly The Late Show or The Interpreter
(In each case it’s the leading man and leading woman who may be in love.)
The Remains Of The Day springs immediately to mind.
j
The King And I. The chemistry between Anna and the King smolders, and they have that one wonderful dance, but there’s never a straight-out love song, or a kiss, or a declaration of love.
(Recently, PBS broadcast the Lincoln Center revival of The King and I. One touch I liked at the end was that they focused on Lady Thiang’s–the King’s chief wife–grief for the King’s death. We’re usually so captivated by the Anna/King chemistry that we forget that Thiang loves her husband, and has an awesome song about just that, and that SHE’S the widow, not Anna.)
Spartacus
*Mrs. Henderson Presents *implies it between Mrs. Henderson and Mr. Van Damm
Yep, that’s the one I thought of upon seeing the thread title.
Not a movie but in Xena there was a lot of theories that her (Xena) and Gabrielle were a couple. Of course it’s probably less ‘theory’ and more ‘teenage guys having lesbian fantasies about them’. In any case, there was no real reason for anyone to think that but as the ‘theory’ got more and more well known the writers kinda leaned into it.
Brief Encounter, one of my favorite movies.
The Grandmaster (?)
The Leopard
*Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
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The Wild Bunch
From the beginning, the writers were injecting lesbian subtext into the show, it was the studio that forbade them from making it explicit.
The creators have stated: “The studio was so concerned that it would be perceived as a lesbian show that they would not allow us to have Xena and Gabrielle in the same frame of the opening titles.”
Some of these suggestions are really stretching it when you claim that two people are in love in the suggested movie. I think it’s just a long-time friendship. I’m not sure we want to argue about this for each movie though.
Some Tom Hanks movies, Punchline and A League of Their Own, might qualify. Sally Field and Geena Davis both played married women, but Hanks’s characters in those two films weren’t particularly gentlemanly. Also, The DaVinci Code, and Audrey Tautou’s character was single, IIRC. He totally should’ve hit that!
If we knew for sure they were in love then the movie wouldn’t qualify.
But you mean, like the two of them are in a relationship but it’s never stated explicitly, or some sort of two-way unrequited thing?
If it’s the second, I’m thinking Laura Dern and Sam Neill in Jurassic Park. Those two were more than just buddies, but I don’t think it had ever led nowhere.
Huh? When they’re getting into the cars for the tour, Malcolm flat out asks if they’re a couple and Neill says yes. And that trailer in the beginning sure looked like a 1 BR.
**The Secret In Their Eyes **
(the original 2009 Argentine film) The extraordinary “chemistry” between the two lead actors says it all.
I haven’t seen the movie really, only read the book, but in the book, the two of them kiss and it’s quite blatant that they are in love by the end. Is the movie as overt?