Falling in Love, with DeNiro and Streep. If I ever watch romance at all, I really appreciate those that have a bittersweet tinge to them. [Going from memory] And although the idea is a little schlocky, for me it encapsulates just how miserable you can be without really verbalizing it. Until that epiphany. In this case, they just try to forge a friendship within their own moral constraints, to only find that it’s bigger than they are. Sometimes love, and apathy / complacency, are like that.
Beat me to it. I’m not much for love stories myself, but these two actors really bring an incredible level of talent to the screen. I saw this quite a few years ago, and it definitely stuck in my mind as a remarkable film.
The Apartment, Waterloo Bridge, Sense and Sensibility, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Stairway to Heaven are also on my list, and I don’t even care much for love stories in general.
I happened to think Possession (2002) with Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart was fantastic. Two parallel love stories, one in the present day and one in Victorian England!
Joe VS The Volcano. A silly story with cliche writing, but fantastic acting saves it and makes in indeering. I put it on in the background all the time.
Id recommend a go at another HK classic C’est le Vie, Mon Cheri. Its a heartbeeaking tale of a young woman with cancer and the love she finds. Anita Yuen, in one of her first roles, gives a complex yet accessible performance. It would make The Expendibles cry.
The movie I had in mind was about a medical student who fell in love with a cafeteria worker. She later became a prostitute and he became a respected Dr. I think she died of syphillis at the nd and he was still in love with her.
I have a slightly off-beat one: Secondhand Lions with Rovert Duvall, Michael Caine, and Haley Joe Osment. One doesn’t think of it as a ‘love story’ (albeit much of the middle is taken up by the memories of Duvall’s character romance with a mid-East beauty), but watching it several times you see it speak to family, what love really is, how we show it, how families do love one another.
While You Were Sleeping is a favorite. I love the bigger story of her finding a family and not just the guy, plus I have a soft spot for Bill Pullman.
“I’ve had a really lousy Christmas, you’ve just managed to kill my New Year’s, if you come back on Easter- you can burn down my apartment.”
Also The Big Easy. Sexy and romantic and I love that they showed them married at the end.
Pride & Prejudice, the 2005 version with Keira Knightley (le sigh) and Matthew Macfadyen. Touching, funny, romantic, with a great cast and a great script, stunning cinematography and an Oscar-nominated classical score.
Keira Knightly is lovely and I’ve liked her in other things, but I thought her depiction of Elizabeth was all wrong. Instead of charming and wry, she came off as almost bitchy. It was a very pretty movie, but for me, seriously miscast. (Misdirected?)/ P&P fangirl hijack