Love, Actually

"I see you."

“I have to warn you, I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.“ Those words from the movie Speed might be seen as a tacit admission by Hollywood screenwriters that 90% of what they do is bogus. All the relationships are based on intense experiences. Often the relationship is the intense experience. And it’s not just the romantic comedies. Even if we escape into the fantasy world of Avatar, we always want to bring our love baggage along with us - perhaps to see if we can gain any insights. Apparently, the love angle is an easy way for movie producers to grab us by the heartstrings and give us a cathartic release relevant to our own lives, and get fifteen bucks from us in the process.

This is not all bad, I suppose. The love stories in movies are often designed to teach some kind of lesson: money isn’t that important [see: Jerry McGuire, Trading Places], humility is a virtue [see: Good Will Hunting, Pride and Prejudice], Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams are incompatible [see: Midnight In Paris], and as I discuss below, people often must undergo profound change before they are ready for a lasting relationship [see: just about anything].

Hollywood says you're a cockroach.

There is, however, a darker side to these love stories: The message in all of these movies is “if you get your act together, you will find the most important thing in life: true love, defined as a completely emotionally satisfying relationship with another person.” There are many things unrealistic about this message, but here I would like to focus on the fact that Hollywood’s definition of love is simplistic and driven completely by our transitory emotions. These movies teach us that the truest thing we possess is our inward compass of “love” and it would be foolishness for us to do anything other than faithfully follow that compass needle in whatever direction it is pointing, without hesitation or question. Celine Dion summed it up nicely for Titanic, “love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime, and never let go till we're gone.” If that's the way it works, it sounds like what happens when a cockroach gets bit by a parasitic wasp. The fact that the cockroach turns into a docile zombie fatally obedient to the wasp may give it an excuse for its future actions, but when we humans are bit by "love" we still have some moral responsibilities. Hollywood often writes these out of the script. What good would it do to include

Let me take it one step further to make sure my point is clear. I'm not against love and I don't think it automatically makes us selfish. I even think it is beautiful how it can chemically alter our brains in wasp-like fashion (As I learned at Body Worlds and the Brain, love is kindled first by the release of adrenaline, then drug-like dopamine, and then oxytocin and vassopressin for long term bonding.) But the problem is that in happy ending after happy ending, Hollywood teaches us that life goes better if we follow our hearts, which is not true. Hollywood's "love" often looks like a categorical imperative that we ought never to contradict. On the other hand, if "love" doesn't happen to us then Hollywood's story will make us bitter and resentful.

I guess it's my turn to leave you, kid.

I’m not claiming to be a movie expert, but Casablanca is one of my favorite all-time movies and my favorite old movie. (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is second.) I like Casablanca not only because it undermines Hollywood's usual exculpation of our obsession with emotional "love," (as I will explain in a minute), but also because it seems to be pleasantly prescient about the good parts of Hollywood’s formulaic plots: To wit, for a story to really be a story, characters on screen need to undergo a significant change.

Despite being a movie written for my grandfather’s generation, Casablanca has believable modern relationships. The people act in ways that seem largely rational to me, and, I think, to most of us. Rick is jilted and self-destructive, but wants a reason to be good again. Ilsa has been faced with agonizing decisions in her life, and wants a second chance at love or to assuage her guilt for hurting Rick. Victor Lazlo is living his life in service to mankind more generally, but still trying to keep his marriage alive. What often bothers me about old movies is that the love stories rarely seem plausible. Perhaps they were plausible back then, or perhaps I can’t pick up on subtleties that would have meant more to a pre-war (or pre-method-acting) public, but these dysfunctional relationships strike me as downright bizarre. In My Fair Lady and The King and I, it is understandable why the male falls in love with the witty, plucky, compassionate, long-suffering female, but there never seems to be a moment when you can reconcile why Audrey Hepburn or whoever played Anna could ever fall in love with the raving solipsists sharing their silver screen. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers might seem tame at first glance, but the chauvinist, bride-napping plot is so bizarrely outrageous I can’t even imagine Quentin Tarantino attempting it nowadays. The African Queen is another one. I remember finding it quite upsetting that the affable and resourceful Humphrey Bogart should fall in love with the priggish (and mentally ill as far as I could tell) Katharine Hepburn. The problem with the character development, I guess, is that some gaping character flaws are never really addressed. I’m not convinced throughout these movies that the king of Siam, Hepburn’s character, or Henry Higgins ever really change. They just seem to eventually accept the persistent love offered by the sane person on the screen, which makes me question the sanity of said sane person.

Insane and the brain

So, I’m glad Hollywood followed the Casablanca model and doesn’t offer these weird romances anymore. Clear character growth is a part of the modern, scripted Hollywood romance that I find indispensable. Characters need to change, if only in their perspective, before “love” is ever going to work out. Not only that, but without characters being changed, there isn’t much point to the story. I recently read a Donald Miller book about storytelling in which he says, “in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet.” In Casablanca, Rick Blaine is clearly transformed by meeting Ilsa again and learning that she still loves him. He becomes brave, self-attuned, and decisive. Thank you Hollywood for getting that part right. Casablanca and most newer movies show characters going through intense circumstances and being changed on the other side. We love that because it reminds us that our own troubles might someday reap for us the benefit of actual growth.

But just because Rick Blaine is changed doesn’t mean that he automatically earns the right to a traditional “happily ever after.” That’s what makes the ending of the movie all the more satisfying, and this is how it completely turns upside down what we are now conditioned to expect from Hollywood. Through a chance meeting at Rick’s Moroccan watering hole, an old flame is kindled between he and Ilsa, who is now married to Victor Lazlo. We expect emotional “love” to conquer all and reunite Rick and Ilsa who were so tragically separated many years ago. But the problem is that there are actually more important outcomes at stake in Nazi-occupied Europe and North Africa than whether two people get to live out their fairy tale ending, and Rick Blaine is man enough to face the facts. So the most "Hollywood" of Hollywood endings (“Here’s looking at you, kid.”) turns out not to be so "Hollywood" after all. The most loving thing Rick can do is face a future without his soul mate.

That’s a risky and complicated plot twist that Hollywood likes to avoid these days. Unfortunately, the fact that they usually do avoid it means that we have a planetful of Hollywood romantics who selfishly believe that if the universe owes them one thing, it is true “love.” Not only does that lead to a lot of disappointment, but it leads to broken relationships (when the “love” doesn’t last) and to individuals who are too weak to face the world without a relational crutch.

That’s why I liked Spanglish, too. I certainly didn’t expect such a satisfying experience when someone cornered me into watching a seemingly kitschy rom com. But aside from delivering great performances (as I recall) from Tea Leoni, Adam Sandler, and even the kids, the movie took a stand against traditional Hollywood love stories by showing how following the romance (no matter how ostensibly pure and justifiable) is not always the best choice for you and those you love. The plot seemed to be setting up a straightforward opportunity for Sandler to ditch his cheating wife and follow his “love” compass into a bilingual union with his housekeeper. The title even seemed to demand it. But then somehow, the plot meandered back to the kids, and what divorce does to kids. Refusing to follow the simplistic dictates of Hollywood “love” stories, screenwriter James L. Brooks kept these pre-adolescent complicating factors in the script and denied Sandler the right to his true “amor.” I was elated at the end to see responsibility and integrity given such seats at the table in a love story.

Oh man, kids screw everything up.

Now, I have no problem with love and romance. I am thankful to still be deeply in love with the woman I married and am so glad for the romantic times we have shared, even if they don’t always feel quite as exciting as they used to. Dopamine is way more exciting than oxytocin. But I do think that we as individuals need to remember that those who sell us things, whether movies, clothes, or vacations, are not telling us truths that they are dispassionately investigating for our good. It seems that way because we feel our heartstrings being tugged, but in fact they are telling us the “half-truths” that they think we want to hear. Their truths are designed to tickle our ears rather than improve our character. They are not laboring for our benefit but for our business. Right now, movie studios are designing more intense cinematic experiences for us. Let’s remember not to give them our hearts too easily. Those intense experiences are not a sound basis for a permanent relationship.