Sometimes he’s standing in the rain yelling as the window gets slammed. Other times, he gets a drink thrown in his face as she storms off. Movie breakups can be brutal, but they can also resonate with us in deeply personal ways.
A breakup is never pleasant, but when they happen the hope is always that there’s something to learn from the experience and ideally bring with us into our next relationship. Sometimes our on-screen counterparts are lucky enough to learn, other times not so much.
A breakup is never pleasant, but when they happen the hope is always that there’s something to learn from the experience and ideally bring with us into our next relationship. Sometimes our on-screen counterparts are lucky enough to learn, other times not so much.
- Gone With the Wind: Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!: Rhett’s famous line as he walked out on Scarlett gave us reason to cheer even if it caused a scandal back in 1939. Hardly an anti-hero, Rhett Butler as dashing, handsome, just the kind of “bad boy” that the high and mighty Scarlett O’Hara should have flocked to if she hadn’t spent the entirety of the film pining for her best friend’s husband. Finally resigned to the fact that she’d loved him all along, Rhett wasn’t buying it and was gone. Like the wind.
For women, the lesson is that sometimes the man for you has been there the whole time. For men, it’s a reminder that sometimes it isn’t worth going through hell for someone who doesn’t feel the same way. - Chasing Amy: Few things in life are fixed with a threesome, except for boredom on a Saturday night. But rarely relationships. The lesson here is not to obsess on the past, who was there first, what was done, etc. Live in the now. As men, we sometimes like to imagine that our wives and girlfriends were virgins (they weren’t) just waiting for us to show up and change that (we didn’t). Don’t delve into the past too much when it comes to prior sexual encounters. You almost always won’t like what you find out. And if you do, remember a threesome won’t fix it. No matter how fun it might be.
- The Breakup: This film serves as a reminder that breaking up, while sad, is not the end of the world. People grow apart, things change, and in the end, you move on with your life. It hurts like hell now, but it’s a part of life.
- Silver Linings Playbook: The breakup in this movie actually occurs twice. First, before the movie even begins when we find out Pat’s wife has left him, and again towards the end when we finally see them speak for the first time and we realize his obsession with winning her back isn’t there anymore. Sometimes what you think you want isn’t what you really want.
- Casablanca: The ending of Casablanca might be one of the best endings to any movie, but it also serves as a reminder of the old axiom that if you love someone, sometimes you have to let them go. Love is a funny thing, and even when you feel it sometimes you need to realize that it will only end badly. Rick cuts his losses, has his memories, and protects Illsa from making a huge mistake that he knows she, and probably he, will regret one day.
