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With Valentine’s Day upon us, here are five films, listed alphabetically, that are made great by their diverse and lasting love stories.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Rainer Werner Fassbinder took inspiration from Douglas Sirk when crafting his 1974 masterpiece “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.” Channeling Sirk’s melodrama “All That Heaven Allows,” this isn’t just a May-December romance; it’s a meditation on any love faced with stigma and oppression. Its taboo bond involves aging widow Emmi (Brigitte Mira) and Arab worker Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), two people separated by age, race and social class. The couple’s affair shocks everyone they know, but that’s nothing compared to the impression it leaves on viewers.
Another Year
“Another Year” is a testament to the virtues of long-term relationships, and the life-sustaining contentment that awaits those brave enough to surrender to commitment. The beautiful, weathered love of Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) is juxtaposed against the aimless self-undoing of Mary (Lesley Manville), the couple’s friend who’s too detached from reality to attach herself to another. Though deeply layered, the film is chiefly an ode to how selfless partnership can keep one grounded.
Bright Star
Criminally undervalued upon release, Jane Campion’s swooning retelling of the relationship between poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and muse Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) achieves a poetry all its own, pairing the writer’s prose with transcendent imagery conveying all of first love’s fervor. One of the best films of the new millennium, “Bright Star” ends in tragedy, but leaves behind proof that great romance can inspire great art.
Serendipity
Turns out a formulaic romantic comedy can still leave a lasting mark. Starring a winning Kate Beckinsale and a disarming John Cusack, “Serendipity” may not be considered a classic, but those who’ve devoured its destiny-driven narrative likely haven’t forgotten it. It’s the details that make “Serendipity” soar, like the specifics of the Manhattan setting, Molly Shannon’s bestie character and a constellation-shaped freckle cluster that reinforces written-in-the-stars love.
Titanic
For many, “Titanic” has become more punch line than movie, its popularity so effusive that the only thing left to do is crack jokes. But if 2012’s 3D re-release proved anything, it’s that the ballad of Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) is, all irony aside, unsinkable.
What five movies do you feel were diverse and lasting love stories?
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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