Ah, l’amour. It’s just about that time of year when declarations of love eternal are made and those not currently entangled find themselves disgusted by every couple that passes their periphery. If you’re in love, out of love, down with love, tentatively circling love in a holding pattern – these films are sure to delight no matter what the state of your Facebook relationship status.
JOHN WICK (2014, dir. Chad Stahelski & David Leitch)
Available on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play (prices vary)
Let’s start with puppy love – literally. This extraordinarily effective action flick features the best justification possible for one man’s violent rampage through the colorful underworld when a crime lord’s upstart son kills John Wick’s puppy, a move that for me gives John Wick (yet another notch in the KeaNu-Wave – that’s right, I coined it) carte blanche to kill as many people possible as a means of revenge. There can be no more manipulative a love on screen than that between a pet and its owner, but it is handled effectively, even tastefully, here.
PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
Available on Amazon, iTunes and Google Play (prices vary)
If you want proof of Paul Thomas Anderson’s utter mastery as a filmmaker, you needn’t look any further than his ability to craft a masterwork that stars Adam Sandler. PTA is working in a magical realist mode here, with the opening sequence establishing the off-kilter emotional landscape as a seemingly random car crash leads to a harmonium being deposited directly in front of Sandler’s place of work. The rest of the movie plays with this dichotomy – objects and moments of beauty/romance intermingle with a coarse/violent outside world (best exemplified by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s mattress store/sex phone line owner). Between Jon Brion’s gorgeously dissonant score and the lovely tentative romance struck between Sandler and Emily Watson, this will be hard to top as one of the most romantic cinematic statements of the 21st century.
OBVIOUS CHILD (2014, dir. Gillian Robespierre)
Available on Amazon Prime (FREE!), iTunes and Google Play (prices vary)
Jenny Slate’s breakout performance in Gillian Robespierre’s charming feature has glibly been described as ‘the abortion rom-com,’ and while the film doesn’t shy away from dealing with that aspect of its story (in an incredibly empowering way that doesn’t minimize her agency or punish her for making such a decision) it is much more than such a simple logline could begin to express. Slate deserves every bit of praise her performance has received as she crafts a lovable character out of elements that could’ve proven insufferable in lesser hands (see many other indie films with young characters mired in a state of arrested development for examples) in a film that doesn’t strike a false note throughout as a tender courtship is enacted under some of the most extenuating (but not defeating) circumstances one can imagine.
THE APARTMENT (1960, dir. Billy Wilder)
Available on Netflix (FREE!), Amazon, iTunes and Google Play (prices vary)
Let’s hop in the way back machine for our next pick, with Billy Wilder’s caustically romantic masterpiece, one of the rare fully deserving Best Picture Oscar winners we have in our history. Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine are perfectly matched as the sad-sack employees of a national insurance company both being used by the upper management (in very different ways, mind you) that tentatively find something substantial in one another. Much is made of Wilder’s cynicism, but save for the most extreme cases in his oeuvre, I’ve always found there to be a warm undercurrent of humanity running underneath his masterpieces. Even when they’re broken, his characters are recognizably human, perhaps none moreso than Fran Kubelik and Bud Baxter. If you’ve never had the pleasure of acquainting yourself with this all-timer, you’re in for a funny, sad and altogether lovely experience.
THEY CAME TOGETHER (2014, dir. David Wain)
Available on Amazon, iTunes and Google Play (prices vary)
Perhaps you and your significant lover are sick of the saccharine tropes of romantic cinema and would much prefer to see those well-worn clichés skewered over the course of a film instead – in that case, the latest collaboration between Michael Showalter and David Wain is for you. A ruthless deconstruction of every Manic Pixie Dream Girl, meet-cute and manufactured conflict that the rom-com genre has brought upon us, with two of the most affable leads you could possibly hope for in Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd. I’ve said more than once before on Moviegoers that I think this movie is being slept on ever so slightly, so if your comedic (or romantic) tastes skew a little toward the outré then allow me to point you in the direction of this fun goof and a spoof.
AMELIE (2001, dir. Jean-Pierre Jenuet)
Available on Netflix and Amazon Prime (FREE!), Amazon, iTunes and Google Play
Let’s close the book on this month’s suggestions with a giant dollop of whimsy, Jean-Pierre Jenuet’s beloved flight of fancy that brought Audrey Tautou to the world at large. When at his best Jenuet is able to effortlessly create twee reveries so ecstatic that you can’t help but be swept up in their immaculate combinations of sound and image. I would expect that for some in the Moviegoers audience this will be one step too far in a certain direction (take one further step and you might find yourself surrounding by a gang of ukulele-playing, floral print-wearing women astride unicycles), but I am remain ever-charmed by this romantic tale of a girl whose Rube Goldbergian machinations in the daily lives of those around her eventually double back toward her and gently nudge her in the direction of romance.
