you don't want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie
oops!
There’s a famous scene in Sleepless in Seattle, a movie that is a love story, but a love story about being in love in a movie about, well, just that. Meg Ryan’s Annie Reed has been agonizingly drafting a letter to Tom Hanks’s widowed dad Sam Baldwin while An Affair to Remember plays in the background. “Now those were the days when people knew how to be in love!” she cries. “They knew it! Time, distance, nothing could stop them because they knew it was right. It was real. It was—” “A movie!” her best friend, Rosie O’Donnell, cuts in.
Sometime during the past year, I began to turn the spot-on, meta piece of dialogue into a self-mocking meme to pull out any time I watched a movie that makes me swoon to the point of embarrassment. I perhaps have always been this way—have always held up works of fiction as standards that the real world could never meet, have always fallen in love with the idea of falling in love—but I’ve definitely been falling into Annie Reed’s “those were the days!” trap far too often recently.
I took time off from dating while writing my book because, by a certain point, I simply could not work, write, and function as a person who meets new people and puts in time and effort to grow those relationships. Now that I’m back on the market…I forgot how much it sucked! I don’t want to be in love with any of these Hinge matches, I am sorry to say! It seems I have a terminal case of “you want to be in love in a movie” brain worms, so here is a brief selection (truly—this is not my entire list) of some of the movies I would like to be in love within.
(It should go without saying but I have to say it anyway: Nothing written in this silly little post is an invitation for any of you freaks to reply in any way that shows interest in me. Leave me alone! If I get a single reply from any of you weirdos I will publicly humiliate you and that is a PROMISE.)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
This is a real “this kind of love only happens in the movies, but oh how glorious it is” one because like in what real world would three men compete to love me!
The Lady Eve (1941)
Every day I fight the urge to delete the apps to meet a man the old-fashioned way (I trick a himbo nepo baby on the high seas into liking me but then I actually catch feelings for him but when he finds out I’m a con girly and dumps me I decide I like winning more so I decide to con the dummy again for real this time but then I end up falling for him all over again and—)
Sabrina (1954)
I originally thought I was going to write an entire piece just about Sabrina, a movie I have seen approximately 800 times since I was 12 but saw in a brand new light the other night at Film Forum. (And that, friends, is why you always go to theatrical rep screenings of movies you’ve seen already!) This time I caught far more clearly Billy Wilder’s sharp criticism for the paradox of upward mobility and the American Dream—at one point Sabrina’s father tells her, “Democracy can be a wickedly unfair thing, Sabrina. Nobody poor was ever called democratic for marrying somebody rich” and I have not stopped thinking about it since—but this little blurb is not about that. This little blurb is about how I also left it with the familiar pang of “oops oh no I want to be in love in a movie.”
Sabrina is a quintessential portrayal of having a debilitating little crush on someone who barely even knows you exist, to the extent that you could be an entire ocean away and still find yourself unable to make a souffle because you’re thinking about them. It is about how crushes are often about being in love with the idea of someone: Our teenage heroine is in love with the idea of David (William Holden, hot!), the youngest of the wealthy family for whom her father is a chauffeur; when she returns triumphantly from time abroad, all grown up and self-possessed, confident that she can have him, he of course falls for this idea of her. This is bad for an upcoming business deal, not to mention bad for family optics, so his older (much older) brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart, who everyone says is miscast but I disagree!) comes in to distract Sabrina until the deal is pushed through. Linus doesn’t love Sabrina—Linus is a stuffed shirt who doesn’t love anyone—and Sabrina doesn’t love Linus—Sabrina has never even really thought about Linus, to be honest—but he’s using her to avoid losing money, and she’s going along with it to make David see how desirable she is. Somewhere along the manipulation, they both fall for each other, because, well, of course.
Honestly, I would play these silly little mind games. I have read far too many Letterboxd reviews of this movie from Zoomers calling all this movie and all of its characters problematic and, honestly, it makes me sick. Grow up. Grow up! I would not care if a guy made what I know is his go-to move on me if (a) he looked like William Holden and (b) was actually making an effort at a romantic gesture to sneak away from a big party to drink smuggled-out champagne on the tennis court together. I would allow his brother to take me out while he’s laid up with an ass injury. He wants to take you out sailing? And you’re mad about it? Humphrey Bogart wants to take you to drinks and a show and dinner and dancing in a terribly upscale restaurant where you can dress up and isn’t just like saying “let’s meet up for $16 cocktails at a bar that is too loud to actual talk at” and you’re going to say no because he’s your crush’s brother??? Grow up! I want a man to offer me an apartment in Paris that’s already paid for, along with a car, a line of credit, and a bunch of shares in his company for my dad in an attempt to buy me off from distracting the family business—to be honest, I’d probably be like “for that price, my feelings are gone, honey!”—only to realize that being Mr. Business is so sad and lonely and he actually loves me and wants to come with! Grow up if you don’t think that’s all terribly romantic! Grow up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Indiscreet (1958)
Indiscreet is a lighthearted romantic comedy with a poster that makes it look like a psychological thriller, which, I guess is one way to market a movie about two old (40+) people who have to stop being fiercely independent and submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known if they want to be truly loved. I’m kidding: It’s light and fluffy and delicious, just the kind of movie to fall in love within.
Ingrid Bergman is a famous theater actress with a fabulous London apartment and a wardrobe entirely outfitted by Dior; Cary Grant is a banker working with NATO who says he’s in an estranged marriage but only so he can carry on affairs without ever having to settle down and give up his confirmed old bachelor lifestyle. They meet cute, they obviously quickly fall in love, and have a long distance affair with weekend trips here and there. I cannot stress enough how undeniably horny this movie is while operating under the facade of chastity. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman standing a foot apart in an elevator just staring silently at each other, not even touching let alone kissing has more palpable sexual tension than most romances in movies today.
Truly, if I am being honest, this is perhaps the ideal romance for me. I am resigned to the fact that I will probably never have a serious relationship until I’m middle aged, part of which is probably because, frankly, I don’t want a man in my house. To turn my Barbie Dream House into a Mojo Dojo Casa House would be fatal to me, and Indiscreet is a movie that gets that. Sometimes love is better when you both get to be two independent adults who love a romantic gesture but also really like being left the fuck alone most of the time!
Charade (1963)
Who wouldn’t want to run around Paris trying to solve their estranged husband’s murder while being scared they’re the next target if they’re doing it serving absolute look after look and being wooed by a truly swoon-worthy Cary Grant? He has about ten identities in the span of the film and that’s fine with me. I am telling you right now: You could have literally any job or identity or tell me literally anything and I will not care how insane it is if you are Cary Grant sitting across from me at a moonlit dinner on a little river boat on the Seine. When he says “Oh you should see your face” and she asks “What’s the matter with it” and he responds “It’s lovely” and she drops her utensils with a swoony sigh? Same, girl.
Here is where you are probably saying: “Carrie, are we going to get a single age appropriate romance on this list?” No! You will not! I watched too many Audrey Hepburn movies growing up, and while I learned very quickly that I will never be Audrey Hepburn, much as I wish I could, it did set wildly unrealistic expectations in regard to my love life, starting with the fact that Audrey Hepburn simply never had a good age appropriate love interest. You have no idea how hard it is to be a girly who likes older men in theory, but in practice knows that, one, she doesn’t want to be in a situation for even one second where someone could play the “daughter or date” game, and, two, a man who is still single at a certain age is a walking red flag. Wanting a Cary Grant figure to sweep me off my feet? Baby, that is a prime “you don’t want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie” problem if I’ve ever seen one.
The Sound of Music (1965)
I don’t want to have children of my own because I think we are at a point in the climate crisis where to procreate is wildly fucking narcissistic and unethical, but also because the older I get, the more I learn how pregnancy can be so dangerous, actually??? I like being alive and I’m the kind of narcissist who would rather keep my body the way it is than try to recreate it in a sentient human that has to live through horrors that we can presently only imagine, so that’s gonna be a pass from me, dog. But I like kids who are alive right now! I like teens and tweens! Actually, I think it’d be great to start parenting after the potty training era! I always immediately swipe left on men with children but I do think I’d be a great stepmother, if and only if their dad was Christopher Plummer and we shared a moonlit dance on the terrace while his fiancee was in the other room and then decided to fight Nazis together.
Grease (1978)
Ah, to be 30 and get to have a high school crush.
Xanadu (1980)
But just in the “Whenever You’re Away From Me” sequence that Gene Kelly hallucinates.
Reds (1981)
It goes without saying but: If you look like Warren Beatty, and are as smart as him, and want to be my romantic and intellectual companion who will make me feel, simultaneously, like I am the dumbest writer alive but also like I’m smart enough to keep up with him and get better myself, I am free.
I don’t think I would go on a months-long voyage across the globe to free you if you were a prisoner of war in Russia but, like, I can’t deny that it would be so romantic.
They All Laughed (1981)
They All Laughed is a love letter to New York with a host of borderline-slapstick love stories crisscrossing its cast of players as they chase each other around town, but it’s also kind of just about guys hanging out. It’s so obvious that the swooniest coupling is supposed to be between Dorothy Stratten—Peter Bogdanovich’s then-girlfriend—and John Ritter—who is essentially Bogdanovich’s stand-in in this role—but sorry, I fall apart whenever Ben Gazzara is on the screen. Personally, I think Ben Gazzara is very handsome and deserves all the renewed interest and cross-generational thirst we have given Peter Falk, but that’s another argument, one where I would yell at you all to watch Saint Jack to fully understand what I mean.
In They All Laughed, Gazzara plays a private eye with enormous divorced dad energy who falls for the woman (Audrey Hepburn) he’s following for a job. They both know the relationship won’t go anywhere (her husband hired him to follow her, even though he’s the one cheating) and will only be brief (she’s only in town for a few weeks), but they both can’t deny they feel something that they haven’t felt before, or haven’t felt in a long time, when they’re together. Any time there’s love in a Peter Bogdanovich, it’s really just about being in love in the movies, and They All Laughed, a movie where love is the kind of love that can only be real in the movies and not real life, is his most romantic.
Crossing Delancey (1988)
I love to be like “I would give it all up for Pickle Man Peter Reigert” when in reality I am so very Amy Irving-coded (anxious-avoidant and fiercely independent but secretly pretentiously pining for the famous writer who does not like me like that). Still: Peter Reigert is such an old-fashioned sweetie pie in this that I melt every time. He soaks his hands in vanilla so they won’t smell like pickles! He never wanted to be set up by a matchmaker until the day she showed him Amy Irving’s photo! He bought her a hat when she said she didn’t like him! He loves her bubbe! He likes her even though he knows she is kind of a snob! What a man!
Working Girl (1989)
This one made me think finance guys are hot and interesting and think women are smart, too, and let me tell you: They only are in the movies.
Little Women (1994)
Look, I KNOW we all know now that Jo is probably queer-coded and Louisa May Alcott didn’t want her to end up with anyone but I’m sorry. I will forever stan Gabriel Byne’s Professor Bhaer, the hottest Bhaers of all the adaptations. So, okay, yes, maybe the under the umbrella ending was a direct request of Alcott’s publishers (as the 2019 version so brilliantly posed). And, okay, maybe Jo, a poor woman, is wildly impractical for choosing love with a poor man in an era where the only way she could truly acquire capital to support herself and her family was by marrying rich. But she had Amy for that, whatever! The depiction of this wildly “only in the movies” (well, only in the books) ending makes me cry so hard every time. He loves her book!!!!! He traveled all the way to Concord to tell her!!!! He got so sad thinking she got married to someone else!!!! He’s going west to teach because people on the east coast are xenophobic and she says no, stay here and start a school with me! It’s pouring rain and they have to stand so tight together and he’s so wistful and Winona is so radiant! HE HAD NOTHING TO GIVE HER HIS HANDS WERE EMPTY AND SHE PUTS HERS IN HIS AS THE CAMERA PANS UP! Isn’t being in love in a movie simply glorious?
Up Close and Personal (1996)
Please know that I am exercising extreme restraint in only choosing one film starring Robert Redford, a man whose picture hung in my high school locker even though it was the early 2000s.
Here is where you might say, “Carrie, you’re in love with Robert Redford and you’re not going with The Way We Were?” And I will say, “That is amateur hour, grow up.” I am here to say this: First, middle aged Redford—a span of films I will define starting with 1986’s Legal Eagles and passing through 2001’s Spy Game—is the most attractive Redford. Second, I don’t want to be in love in any of these tragic love story love movies, which The Way We Were is. He isn’t even very nice to her when they’re together and then he leaves her! Of course I’m not going with The Way We Were!
He’s nice to Michelle Pfeiffer in Up Close and Personal, though only after he gives her some harsh criticism because she’s his employee and he can see she has what it takes to become a great newswoman. Sure, the movie is a soapy watering down of the Jessica Savitch story (the story of how it strayed so far from its starting point is depicted spectacularly in screenwriter John Gregory Dunne’s Monster: Living Off the Big Screen) that ends up mostly being A Star Is Born but set in the world of journalism, complete with nauseatingly hokey montages tracked by Celine Dion songs. The whole thing is one giant HR headache; you could probably never make this movie post-MeToo, but it unfortunately made its mark on me at an impressionable age:
You’ve Got Mail (1998)
The way Nora Ephron once talked about how she had been on a date with someone she hated and it crossed her mind that they were maybe actually meant for each other, because movies taught her that people who despise each other and had snippy, bickering banter would actually fall in love at the end of the day? Yeah, that’s precisely what this movie has done for me. I was about to write a little “yes, I know he’s wildly problematic and deceiving her but…” defense of Joe Fox when I sensed a theme running through many of these titles. Whoops!!! Perhaps it’s a good thing I have yet to be in love in a movie in real life!!! (But also perhaps that’s why there are no good rom coms being made today; the genre so often relies upon deception as a major plot driver, and people today are too fucking quick to moralize entertainment. But that’s an actual essay for another time!)
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okay that's it that's the end thanks love u bye
Wonderful, as always, Carrie.