The whole purpose of this "series" was, from its very beginning, to reach this exact point - so I've honestly been waiting for months [months of blog neglect, I admit] to get to the last two decades of film. Being perfectly fair, I do not think I find these two particularly good... but, I am a child of the very late eighties, and I did grow up watching movies of the 90's and, when I learned to love film, the 21st century had fallen upon me and, obviously, it's what is most at reach for me.
So, without any further ado, my picks for 1990's romance...
The greatest love epic since
Doctor Zhivago, (and one that, in my opinion, even surpasses it, easily)
The English Patient is
operatic in its [infinite!] beauty. Passionate like few others, constructed almost magically, it's filled with gorgeous moments, features frightfully real and heartfelt characters and has an amazing view of "love beyond borders"... and few performances have captured a love-stricken, tortured soul like Ralph Fiennes's Count Almásy.
It's not easy to update a classic - and, while
Great Expectations might present itself as easier to "tamper" with than other works... but the 1998 version does more than justice to Dickens's novel, keeping faithful to its spirit while practically changing everything else. With a strange lightness to it, my favourite of Alfonso Cuarón's films exudes sexiness, madness and eternal devotion... absolutely gorgeous.
A film everybody had doomed to failure before its release due to incredible budget up's,
Titanic took everybody by surprise. Released a year after
The English Patient, it followed the trend of romantic grandeur
Patient had first imposed upon the world... but
Titanic was really aimed at a wider audience, and it became an instant favourite of my generation. Ten years have passed since the first moment Jack Dawson claimed to be "the King of the World", and while many dismiss
Titanic as a mess or as an undeserving choice, the fact is that it's not only there, but it'll be there for the ages - and Jack and Rose have become as recognizable to film romance as Rick and Ilsa or Rhett and Scarlett.
In the second direct appearance of William Shakespeare's great romance, Baz Luhrmann's update of
Romeo + Juliet is, again, a surprising success at retelling a classic tale. While it may be argued that it's basically Shakespeare's play after switching sword for gun - but that's the brilliance of it! You actually have thugs speaking in verse, the narrator is a news anchor, it's all set in Verona, Florida - and somehow, it all works perfectly, and in its core, the timeless story of the two lovers works as well as the first day it was performed.
Yet another version of the same play, or more like a retelling of how it was written,
Shakespeare in Love marvels in its wit, screenplay, acting, costumes, settings, music - and in its deeply magical and romantic spirit. A love story for the ages and a more human approach, though fictional, to one of history's greatest men,
Shakespeare in Love achieves all it tried to do, and more.
The prequel to one of my favourite movies ever,
Before Sunrise is one of the most sincere portrayals of love I've ever seen on film. Impossibly romantic, oh-so-very idealistic, it's really one of those perfect little films - dialogues and characters in particular are just
so real it's almost frightening. Nothing beats those ancient European cities for film romance!
First from Jane Austen's pen and latter from Emma Thompson's,
Sense and Sensibility, while considered a "lesser work" of Austen, made for a beautiful romantic comedy of manners in this 1995 Ang Lee-directed version.
Much like in the recipes featured in the film,
Como Agua Para Chocolate mixes many of the things that can make film gret: beautiful settings, a passionate story, strong characters, a bit of honour and lots and lots of chocolate: delicious.
Bound from the social limitations of an era of hipocrisy, the two lovers of
The Age of Innocence are forced to a lifelong affair of silence and, ultimately, unrecognition, as one is forced to carry on without the other. By far my favourite Martin Scorsese film,
The Age of Innocence possesses a light elegance that makes it stand out from everything else - a kind of sensual, loving and delicate quality that makes it seem almost too breakable for words.
A less-than-common choice, I suppose, but however many haters
Meet Joe Black might have, there's always one fan in the crowd that stands up for it and calls it a gorgeous love story... and yes, I'm that little voice in the crowd. With a decidedly not conventional story, even Brad Pitt works properly - back when he didn't know how to act much and just looked pretty. Sweet and quirky, it covers its flaws with a gorgeous love story - and it features probably my favourite sex scene ever.
The absolutely lovely Il Postino tells the story of a love-stricken Italian postman that, with the help of a Chilean poet on exile, the great Pablo Neruda, makes his loved one love him back through borrowed beautiful words. A sort of less complicated Cyrano de Bergerac, it's filled with the spice of Italian culture and the thoughtful reserve of the Andes Latin America - and, whatever it might be fill of, it works, and turns out being one of the most gorgeous pieces of work ever filmed.
The film that, for better or for worse, launched Julia Roberts to mega-stardom,
Pretty Woman is a modern and somewhat extreme retelling of
Cinderella - and who can forget Vivian looking fab while shopping in Rodeo Dr. with Roy Orbison singing in the background? It was Julia's movie through and through, and the story is, even in all its clichés, as fresh as it always was and will always be.
The movie even the Empire State Building loves and the most iconic of the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks pairing,
Sleepless in Seattle is, just as
An Affair to Remember was before it, the ultimate chick flick... only this one was all set for it, and prepared to launch. Beautifully romantic and almost too cute to be true,
Sleepless in Seattle is the movie you watch in a rainy Wednesday night to get cheered up... and how it works!
"I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it."
