Mushy movie challenge

While struggling to understand and accommodate myself in the new age of romanticism, I have grown out to be massively pessimistic in my thoughts about love. After a long night of sad drinking, bawling and crying, I was struck by a moment of realisation. That to come to terms with my ex boyfriend’s ironic choice of ‘settling down’ in a polyamorous relationship, I had to go back to embracing my own beliefs about love and relationships. As it turns out, my choices are the exact opposite of his. I crave for inconvenient monogamous relationships that involve a lot of fighting, making up and even making out-both the angry, and happy kinds. To deal with this situation, I have set myself up for what I would like to call a 10 Mushy Movie Challenge. I am going to watch 10 awesomely awesome romantic movies and write stuff about them to restore my faith in mushy stuff!

What am I expecting out of this? Nothing! I just want to have fun and go ‘awwww’ for a while and forget all that I have learnt in the last 2 years of struggling singlehood. For once, I’m going to watch these movies and not go ‘duh, had this been real life, he would have dumped her ass off’, instead, I’m going to give you some insightful crap!

Movie number 1- Annie Hall

Starting with realistically happy rather than the classic mush. Diane Keaton’s smile is that heart-reaching, soul-touching bliss that few are blessed with. Cute satire mixed with a blend of feel good and relatable moments was the perfect start to my challenge. The scene that made me go super mushy and gave me the ‘wish this happened to me’ feels was that part where Alvy asks Annie to kiss her right before dinner. “Because we’re just gonna go home later, right, and then there’s gonna be all that tension, we’ve never kissed before and I’ll never know when to make the right move or anything. So we’ll kiss now and get it over with, and then we’ll go eat. We’ll digest our food better.” Cannot stress enough on the importance of digesting food well, Alvy! Anyway, it wasn’t exactly the classic happy end we all crave for, but it was first time watching this one and it sure gave me a good feel. Will I watch it again is something I cannot answer, but I already feel great and I am really excited to finish this thing!

Movie number 2- 27 Dresses

I needed something light hearted that really has the ‘feel good’ factor to it. This used to be a movie a loved as a teenager when I was wayyy more dreamy. Now I have been the single friend around unsingled friends for stretched out periods which is perhaps one the many reasons why I find this movie still so relatable. I love how the movie ends with sweet Jane finally finding the love of her life in a marriage hating charmer. Best scene-When drunk Kevin admits to have cried like a baby at the Keller wedding. Happy unicorn and rainbow moments in movies is what this challenge thrives upon anyway now, doesn’t it? Those combined with a happy ending sure left me feeling good.

Movie number 3- Friends with Benefits

A perfect light movie recommendation happened over the phone by my closest friend from India! We both agreed on how cute Mila Kunis was and how the movie had a sort of unrealistic, however, happy end to it! Very relatable about how we complicate our dating lives. Perhaps it was a little too unrealistic, but the end was cute enough to leave me feeling good.

Movie number 4- My best friend’s wedding

Julia Roberts’ smile wins over my heart! And why shouldn’t it? It is the most charming smile after all! All said and done, this movie has probably been the lowest point in the challenge, however, it left me feeling overwhelmed with all these relatable feelings. I’ll probably pass on watching it again because I almost wish the movie did not end the way it did. I’ll still say it was beautiful!

Movie number 5-Four Weddings and a funeral

Not the most convincing romantic movie, but I think it fulfils a part of the challenge, that not every kind of love is relatable and understandable. Parts of it were definitely thought provoking and resonating. Hugh Jackman wondering if he had already met the ‘right person’ and had let her go. I still continue to have very little faith in the idea of finding ‘the one’ but I like how it made me go dreamy for a bit.

Movie number 6-You’ve got mail

Meg Ryan+Tom Hanks=Love. This has always been one of my favourite classics and I knew I had to include it in the challenge. I love how beautifully the movie ends with Tom Hanks wiping off her tears, saying ‘Don’t cry, shopgirl’. Makes me go awww! My favourite scene however, has always been that tiny moment when she gets asked if there is someone else, and adorably replies ‘No, but there is the dream of someone else’. As a teenager and possibly even in my early twenties, I remember being super dreamy about the kind of guy I wanted to be with. I think over the years of being in a relationship and getting heart broken at varied levels (from being stood up by strangers to being dumped by the boyfriend I was dating for 3 years) leaves you being stronger but less dreamy. ‘The dream of someone else’ thought has definitely made me less non dreamy! Perhaps this challenge is doing something good to me!

Movie number 7-Pride and Prejudice

Kiera Knightley fits perfectly into the character of Elizabeth in this adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel. I have admit that this was the perfect movie for this challenge, especially because I was lagging behind. Delusionally dreamy but it most definitely made me feel good. I have been having deep discussions on the importance of communication and problems with not speaking openly about what is on one’s mind. What better movie than this to get my head nodding to that! “You have bewitched me body and soul” was beautiful, although after few seconds of admiring the moment, I did think to myself-”who says that?!” Isn’t that what dreamy movies are all about anyway, delusionally beautiful moments that we can only think about but don’t exist for real. Haha. I will silence the cynic in me now and go to bed feeling delusionally romantic.

Movie number 8-Dil Chahta Hai

This was a completely unexpected addition to this challenge, while Dil Chahta Hai is a movie that centers around friendship, I happened to watch this movie today and saw it from a completely different perspective. I know every dialogue and gesture in the movie and I can tell that it is very light hearted and fun, but today I found myself crying! Big surprise. Perhaps I was overwhelmed, but I could relate to parts of the movie that I have never ever related to or liked so much despite watching this movie SO MANY times. Tara and Siddharth’s story of non conventional romance, Aakash, the love-hater falls in love with an engaged girl and Sameer who is a generic flirt ends up falling in love with someone he was set up for an arranged marriage. All of these sound mushy, unrealistic and part of me goes ‘but in real life…’. But romantic movie challenge accepted. Hah! Also, I have now downloaded Troilus and Cressida on my kindle and I am inspired to read it. This challenge is making me read Shakespeare. Must be something!

Movie number 9- Serendipity

For some reason I had a liking for this movie when I was younger. For reasons of fate and destiny and romanticism. While it has not stirred the realist in me, it has left me feeling very high on love. The ice skating rink and the music leaves you feeling a little too unrealistically wonderful at the end of it. It is almost funny that this came up as a suggestion from a person who has been having heated and concerning debates on the subject of free will since the last few days with me. The only slightly convincing part was about Jonathan’s friend speaking about ‘passion’, it is indeed a strong driving force for a relationship. I’m sure Jon and Sara probably still fought every now and then, but perhaps their passion or the will that brought them together kept them together. As far I am concerned, I am close to winding up this challenge and almost happy about being delusional!

Movie number 10- Before Sunrise

First things first, I could possibly never get over how much of a genius Richard Linklater is! Beautifully directed movie that touches my heart every time I watch it, and every time I do I feel like I have something new to ponder over. I think my newly discovered beautiful line from the movie is in the part where they make pretend phone calls to their friends. Celine describes to ‘her friend’ how she can feel his eyes on her when she looks away. I also think I grew a little more in love with her character when she spoke about ‘God’ existing in the little space between us or when she spoke about how knowing a person, being able to predict them and getting used to their little annoying traits would make her fall in love with them more. Another new thought I had was when Jessy claims that if he had the choice to never see her again or marry her, he would marry her. Crazy romantic ideas like that don’t seem very appealing to me, but I wonder what is the value of a complete stranger that you can share the depths of your mind with. A value so high that you will consider committing to them for the rest of your life. It is needless to say that this movie helps me conclude a challenge like this in a way that no other movie could have made me do. It definitely doesn’t have a fairytale end to it, but it left me overwhelmed as usual.

Whoever you are, thank you for reading this. I am so glad I decided to do this instead of sulking over how much crap there is out there in the dating world. Here is my final takeaway-Fairytale love probably doesn’t exist but not giving up is still amazing. It means you’re attempting to turn something into gold and there is always a great possibility of finding joy in the little things about this crazy abstract thing we call ‘love’. May our lives be full of bright amazing dates! :)