Best Romance Films: From Billy Wilder to Paul Thomas Anderson, cinema’s greatest auteurs have explored the messy nuances of love for as long as the medium has existed. Stay with this part of Movies from the series of entertainment in Eternal Pen magazine.
Best Romance Films
Romance is complicated. The meshing together of two or more people isn’t designed to be a smooth process and art has reflected that for generations, most recently in the new Amazon MGM rom-com “The Idea of You”. In honor of the film dropping on Prime Video, IndieWire has compiled a list of the best age-gap romance films to enjoy after watching Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine’s jaunt within the genre. From the best-selling novel by Robinne Lee, “The Idea of You” follows a 40-year-old gallery owner and divorceé, who, after escorting her daughter to Coachella, ends up in a whirlwind romance with the 24-year-old lead singer of a famous boy band. The book was adapted for the screen by Michael Showalter, as well as Jennifer Westfeldt, who’s dabbled in complicated romances in the past with films like “Kissing Jessica Stein” and “Friends With Kids”.
‘Sabrina’ (1954)
Best Romance Films: Billy Wilder loved romance. He loved love in all its kooky, varied complexities, whether it was the hopeless romanticism of Bud and Fran in “The Apartment” or the silly, physical barriers preventing Joe and Sugar’s dalliance in “Some Like It Hot”.
His most touching romance, however, has to be “Sabrina”, which pairs a 55-year-old Humphrey Bogart against a 25-year-old Audrey Hepburn and never once references the age disparity. It is important to the plot, however, which tells the story of chauffeur’s daughter Sabrina Fairchild, who’s obsession with David, the playboy youngest son (William Holden) of the rich family her father works for, nearly turns tragic if not for the attentiveness of the family’s eldest son, Lionel, played by Bogart.
After spending two years refining herself in Paris, Sabrina returns home to find David’s affections suddenly turned in her direction. At first she’s overjoyed, but as Lionel spends more time with her in an effort to push David towards another suitor, she realizes her tastes have changed and that someone more mature may in fact be better for her. In this sense, age becomes an important factor as Lionel soon realizes how time he’s spent focused on financial bottom lines rather than living his life.
‘All That Heaven Allows’ (1955)/ Best Romance Films
Best Romance Films: One of cinema’s most beloved romances, ‘All That Heaven Allows’ tells a story of suburban discontent and repression as an expressionistic, elemental forbidden romance. Jane Wyman is a rich, relatively young widow with a big house and two children who take her for granted. Rock Hudson is her handsome, earthy gardener who craves a simple life.
When sparks blossom, their age gap — and the fact that Wyman is the elder of the two — and class divide provoke gossip in their materialistic town. ‘All That Heaven Allows’ was dismissed as a relatively tawdry melodrama in its day, but at its core is a timeless and moving story about going against social pressures to achieve what you really want.
‘The Graduate’ (1967)/ Best Romance Films
Best Romance Films: Aided by the Simon and Garfunkel track of the same name, Mrs. Robinson from ‘The Graduate’ is one of the most notorious film characters of the ‘60s, and her name is practically a shorthand for ‘hot older woman.
’ And yet, ‘The Graduate’ is far more cynical about the relationship between Anne Bancroft’s jaded suburbanite and Dustin Hoffman’s directionless college grad Benjamin than its saucy reputation suggests, depicting their tawdry affair as an escape from reality for two people who feel stuck in their shallow non-lives.
When Benjamin finds a much more suitable partner in Robinson’s daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross), the older woman threatens to destroy their relationship before it even starts. While Hoffman was the breakout star of ‘The Graduate,’ it’s Bancroft’s performance that proves the true key to the film, portraying a complex woman whose unhappiness drives her into cruelty even as she attempts to protect her own family from her mistakes.
‘Carol’ (2015)/ Best Romance Films
Best Romance Films: Todd Haynes knows how to pull off a 1950s-set melodrama, and ‘Carol’ may just be his best. Based on the 1952 novel ‘The Price of Salt’ by Tom Ripley scribe Patricia Highsmith and adapted by Phyllis Nagy, ‘Carol’ stars Rooney Mara as Therese, a young counter-girl at a department store whose photographic aspirations lead her to catch sight of a stunning subject one evening around Christmas, the titular Carol.
Cate Blanchett plays Carol as a woman aware of the spell she casts over people, but tired of not having more control over it. Divorcing from her husband Harge in a time and place where it casts you as a leper, she does her best to carry on the social graces her community demands of her, but it’s Therese’s infatuation towards her that gives her the strength to carry on and fight for herself.
Therese shows her that they can create a new vision of themselves that’s more in their image and despite it seeming harder and harder for them to do so as the film goes on, their romance makes viewers believe in what is possible rather than what might not be.
‘Phantom Thread’ (2017)/ Best Romance Films
Best Romance Films: One of the most romantic films of the 21st century (no, really), Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Phantom Thread’ thrillingly subverts the power dynamics you’d expect from its central pairing.
As seen through the eyes of young foreign waitress Alma (Vicky Krieps), the meticulous fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is at first a graying prince charming who sweeps her off her feet in a whirlwind marriage, turning her into a muse and model.
Then, he’s a terror, cold-hearted and vicious. But just when the audience thinks they have the dynamic pegged down, ‘Phantom Thread’ suddenly startlingly flips the script, as the seemingly submissive Alma finds a way to exert control in her relationship. And what’s even more impressive is how convincingly Anderson’s film makes the case for her and Reynolds’ codependent, disturbing chemistry, a union between two screwed-up, strange people that works against all odds.
