I’ve never been one of those single people who carry a sense of vitriol for Valentine’s Day. While it’s true I don’t have a paramour with whom to share the holiday, I just don’t quite understand the need to allow an embittered sense of self-pity ruin what could otherwise be a good time. Furthermore, Valentine’s Day really should be a day of celebration for everyone, because it signals the fact that, in less than 24 hours, a shit ton of candy is about to get discounted at the local drug store.
If you can’t find the love in that, then honey, I don’t know what to tell you.
However, while I take no issue with Cupid’s special day, regular readers will be happy to know that I’m still undeniably me, and that means I can’t let this lover’s holiday slip by totally unscathed. While I do honestly appreciate Valentine’s Day, I’ve always had a habit of celebrating it in a way that is hugely, shall we say, non-traditional.
You see, whether I have a Valentine or not, one of my favorite things to do on this most romantic of days is to take in slices of cinema that highlight couples for whom the “til death do us part” portion of love is brought to the uncomfortable forefront. Maybe it’s a little sadistic, but there’s nothing quite like cuddling up to a date, throwing in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and seeing if they’ll stay snuggled up to you as George and Martha descend into martial dysfunction.
I mean, can you imagine a better evening? I know I can’t.
The truth is, I just love movies about love…gone wrong.
Don’t misunderstand, I love a good romantic film as much as the next guy. I’m a perennial viewer of Love, Actually, I championed The Runaway Bride when no one else would, and I’ve probably swooned alongside Audrey Hepburn on more occasions than I care to admit. However, there’s something to be said about a movie that portrays the flipside of romance and brings to surface all those dark, gritty moments the Garry Marshalls and Nora Ephrons would prefer we forget.
Furthermore, I know I’m not alone. There’s something deeply compelling about watching a love story that not only doesn’t work out, but crashes and burns in the most grand of fashions. It’s cinematic Schadenfreude that allows us to delight in misery, because it’s not actually happening to us or someone we know, and is artistic catharsis for our own, occasionally fractured, love lives.
No matter how in love with love we are, everyone has their favorite tale of love gone wrong. It’s just the law of averages. After all, isn’t Romeo & Juliet one of the most classically venerated examples of this phenomenon? It sure as hell didn’t work out for those two crazy kids.
As if to prove my point, when I put the question of everyone having a favorite “love gone wrong” movie to Chrissy, my cousin/roommate who notoriously likes the most cheerful and sweetest of media, she replies without a moment’s hesitation, “Mine’s Fear.” She’s referencing the 1996 movie (above) starring Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon, about a girl who gets involved with a boy who turns out to be, well, Mark Wahlberg. Her lack of pause exemplifies our own twisted interest in the darker aspects of romance. No one actually wants to be those people, but when we see them, it’s pretty hard to turn away.
With this in mind, I decided it was high time to call together another cinematic roundtable. As you know, we here at Peaches Christ HQ are fond of recommending the best movies for any occasion, but what if that occasion is when all things sweet have gone sour? As Peaches and I are already known for our affinity for the darker side of things, it comes as no surprise that offering up some of romance’s more horrific tales comes easy. However, in honor of the holiday, we wanted to pull together a panel of trusted experts and pop culture scions to offer up their very best recommendations for “love gone wrong” flicks you can sit down and watch with/without your love this Valentine’s Day.
I think you’ll agree our rogues’ gallery for this particular roundtable is more than prepared to meet the task at hand, considering their various qualifications all seem to speak to the topic. In addition to Peaches and me, the merry misfits that are helping us skewer St. Valentine’s holiest of celebrations include:
- Lotti Pharris Knowles, producer of I Am Divine and producer/writer of Chastity Bites, a fright film that’s all about the horrors of abstinence education.
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- Mark Bessenger, writer/director of Bite Marks and The Last Straight Man, as well as the forthcoming Confessions, which itself features a few tales of love gone awry.
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- Stacie Ponder, filmmaker, pop culture champion, and the genius behind popular horror blog Final Girl
So, without further ado, I present you the “Love Gone Wrong” Roundtable, wherein we recommend the finest films to ever foul romance to add to your Valentine’s Day watch list.
Here we go!
Michael Varrati – Before we even get too far along, I think it’s important we recognize that Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (dir. Mike Nichols) is essentially the gold standard for “love gone wrong” movies. Just a few years shy of its 50th anniversary, and it’s still as squirm inducing as it was when it was released five decades ago. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have never been better in their entire careers, and watching them exchange such vicious barbs, especially knowing they were actually married in real life, makes that movie feel horribly voyeuristic and uncomfortable. I always totally feel for the characters played by George Segal and Sandy Dennis in the movie, because I can’t imagine being trapped at that party watching those two destroy their marriage in front of your very eyes. More so, it’s sociologically fascinating to see how the vitriol of the older couple starts manifesting in the younger couple as the movie progresses. I think there are elements in of Virgina Woolf in an almost all the damaged love stories that have been made since.
Lotti Phariss Knowles (Producer of I Am Divine, Writer/Producer of Chastity Bites)– Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? is such a great film, with two of the most brilliant and bruising performances ever committed to celluloid. I’m sure George and Martha inspired another great love-gone-wrong flick couple: Henry and Wilma from “The Crate” segment of Creepshow.
Michael Varrati – My favorite romance in Creepshow is Stephen King and his plants.
Peaches Christ– It’s hard to imagine a movie where love goes more tragically wrong than in Sid & Nancy (Dir. Alex Cox), mostly because it’s all true. The story of Sid & Nancy is so twisted, because unlike some of the movies we’ll be discussing, the really disturbing factor is that I don’t think they stopped loving each other. This isn’t love gone sour, per se, it’s love that, by virtue of existence, was destructive. The fact that they loved each other is actually what killed them. It’s a fantastic movie, and is a brilliant look into the world of drugs, punk rock, and the Sex Pistols. But mostly, it’s about two addicts whose biggest addiction was each other. And, as anyone who knows their music history can attest, theirs was an overdose of a positively gruesome kind.
Michael Varrati – As a fan of 80s-era psycho-thrillers, I think we’d be totally remiss if we did a list of “love gone wrong” movies and didn’t include Fatal Attraction (dir. Adrian Lyne). Not only is it the seminal film of an entire generation of nouveau sex noir pictures, it’s an unshakeable part of the zeitgeist.
The movie inspired a litany of imitators, and its influence is still felt in pop culture to this day. But, I think Fatal Attraction endures mostly due to its simplicity. It’s a story we know all too well: Man cheats on wife. The other woman turns out to be a psychopath. Shit gets real. The familiar premise hooks us, and it’s Glenn Close’s performance as the jilted lover that keeps us there. She’s so manically unhinged, it’s a cinematic tour de force. You can’t quite look away as she makes Michael Douglas pay for spurning her, and I’m sure her crazed glances made more than one male audience member cross his legs in quiet contemplation. Close insists on not being ignored, and as viewers, we wouldn’t dream of doing so. It’s a compelling performance for the ages, and a reminder that we may need to vet our dating choices a little more thoroughly before taking them home. Fatal Attraction is the movie that showed us that love isn’t just crazy, it’s absolutely fucking insane.
Lotti Pharris Knowles – The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick) expertly explores the truism that couples, no matter how much in love (and Jack and Wendy are questionably so at best), desperately need the company of OTHER FUCKING PEOPLE once in a while. If my husband and I were both trying to write in our house every day with our cats and no one else around, it would quickly devolve into the Overlook Hotel up in there.
Mark Bessenger (Director of Bite Marks, The Last Straight Man, and the forthcoming Confessions)- Author and poet Edgar Allan Poe probably hated Valentine’s Day. An entire occasion set aside to declare one’s love for another probably stuck in the craw of a man, who, at twenty-seven, married his thirteen year old cousin, only to lose her 10 years later to tuberculosis. While several of Poe’s poems follow the theme of the death of a beautiful woman, it’s often suggested that “Annabel Lee,” about a man mourning his late wife so badly he lies next to her in her crypt, probably referred to his own spouse. This is a theme Roger Corman picked up on when producing and directing his famous film adaptations of Poe. In many cases, the adaptations were very loose, but the theme of love gone wrong or love misplaced is still very present.
Michael Varrati –It’s pretty well known I have a Poe affinity, and it’s true his outlook on romance was grim. I also dig Corman, so I’m curious to hear what examples you’d cite.
Mark Bessenger- In House of Usher, Madeline Usher’s fiancé comes searching for her, only to discover that her brother, so afraid of procreating and continuing the lineage of family madness, has entombed her alive. Better that than love, marriage, and children.
In The Raven, Dr. Craven mourns the loss of his wife Lenore, and travels to the castle of his arch-enemy, Dr. Scarabus, when he learns her spirit might be trapped there. The truth is much worse: Lenore faked her death and fled to Scarabus because he was more powerful and in a higher social standing. All that mourning on an insincere love.
And finally, in The Tomb of Ligeia (above), love goes wrong from the start, as the Lady Rowena falls from her horse and sprains her ankle upon sight of Verden Fell, who has recently widowed. Although Fell shuns her, Rowena becomes determined to become his wife and succeeds, but doesn’t understand why Verden isn’t performing his husbandly duties. She soon discovers why: He is keeping the corpse of his first wife Ligeia in the cellar. From the position of the body, it’s obvious Fell is being intimate with his dead wife, preferring sex with a stiff to the warm embrace of the living Rowena.
Michael Varrati – Well, if necrophilia is going to enter this equation, Jörg Buttgereit made a whole movie about a man and his wife who have a sexual relationship with a corpse called Nekromantik. But, sex with dead people is a can of worms I’d rather not further explore in this roundtable…pun very much intended.
Peaches Christ– I think Monster (Dir. Patty Jenkins) is also a good addition to this discussion. I know it’s about this fractured woman who becomes a serial killer, but the heart of the movie is really centered on the love affair between Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron) and her lover, played by Christina Ricci. Can you even imagine? You’re finally in a relationship, only to discover that the person you’re living with is America’s first female serial killer? That’s going to seriously ruin your dating credibility. It’s a heavy movie and the performances are fierce, but it also says a lot about the things we’re willing to overlook when we’re falling in love. Plus, Charlize Theron’s Cousin Wonderlette look is spot-on.
Michael Varrati – Do you realize both of your recommendations are based on true stories? It doesn’t really paint a very healthy picture of the real world of dating.
Peaches Christ – Truth is more fucked than fiction.
Michael Varrati: Too true. Which reminds me, I think Stacie also has a lesbian love recommendation*.
*Writer’s warning: Spoilers ahead.
Stacie Ponder (Final Girl, Filmmaker, Champion of the Blogosphere)- Love gone wrong…it doesn’t get much wronger than High Tension, the ultraviolent 2003 French flick from writer/director Alexandre Aja. Now, I don’t fancy myself some Tony Robbins-type who knows so much about life that I can tell you how to live it on 15 CDs or cassettes. My life is a mess! Just ask my mom. But, even I know that there are “dos” and “do not dos” when it comes to love.
- For example, should you someday find yourself saying “Ah geez, I’m gay and in love with my best friend,” these are some dos:
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- 1. Tell your friend, find out your friend is in love with you too, and live happily ever after;
- 2. Tell your friend, find out your feelings are not reciprocated, get sad, and move on;
- 3. Keep your feelings to yourself, die inside every time your best friend dates someone else
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Easy, right? Well, when High Tension Marie (Cecile De France) figures out she’s got it bad for her best friend Alexia (Maiwenn), she does all manner of do not dos:
- 1. She flips out, creates a sleazy, violent alter-ego and murders Alexia’s family;
- 2. She murders some innocent bystanders;
- 3. She kidnaps Alexia to protect her from…her murderous alter-ego
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This is not the way to navigate the murky waters of love! However, watching High Tension is a great way to spend Valentine’s Day. If you’re single, the film reinforces the idea that romance is usually more trouble than it’s worth. And if you’re happily coupled up, you can thrill to the fact that your partner probably isn’t as awful as poor Marie. Ain’t love grand?
Michael Varrati: Well, you can’t deny the French have always gone the extra mile for romance. Speaking of European love…
Lotti Pharris Knowles – Possession (Dir. Andrzej Zulawski ) is the greatest and craziest love-gone-wrong flick of all, in my book. How shitty would you feel if your spouse was stepping out on you with a space octopus? And one that just ends up looking exactly like YOU in the end? We don’t even get to see a glimpse of Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani happy — Zulawski just plops us right down in the middle of their marital meltdown and takes us on a two hour train ride of crazy from there. Come for Neill rocking himself obsessively in the fetal position; stay for Adjani’s half-octopus, half bloody-puss miscarriage in the otherwise-deserted Berlin subway. (top photo)
Michael Varrati– With films like Basic Instinct, Disclosure, and the aforementioned Fatal Attraction under his belt, it could easily be argued that Michael Douglas is the MVP of “relationships gone sour” cinema. However, icepicks and bunny drama aside, I think my all-time favorite tale of destructive love is The War of the Roses, directed by Danny DeVito. The film sees Douglas and his onscreen spouse, played by Kathleen Turner, start, as most couples do, with devoted bliss and idealistic hope in their eyes. The film tracks the beginnings of their humble marriage all the way through a life of career successes and growing riches. Yet, as their economic prosperity booms, the love in their marriage is dying a slow, rotting death. By the time the titular couple ought to be preparing for their golden years together, they instead are living with nothing but seething hatred for one another, leading to all out suburban warfare. Brandishing guns, monster trucks, and a plate of pate, the couple attack each other with everything in they’ve got, causing several squirm worthy moments for the audience. With Serial Mom as a notable exception, Turner has never been so frenetically outrageous as she is here, and her vitriol of Douglas keeps the movie exploding forward at an alarming rate. For his part, Douglas responds in kind, countering the every move of a wife who wants him (and his dog) dead with uncomfortable whimsy. The War of the Roses is a hilarious romp, but it’s also a dark exposition on the venom of ex-lovers. A totally brilliant flick, The War of the Roses is my number one pick for a date night movie. After all, if your date can make it through the film and see the humor behind it, you may not have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of your life, because you’ve probably found the one.
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Want to join in on the discussion? Have a “love gone wrong” film you think we missed? Maybe you want to send Peaches a Valentine? Leave a comment below or shoot Michael a message over on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/MichaelVarrati), he’ll be happy to hear from you!
Also, a good cast is worth repeating:
- Lotti routinely chronicles her horror-filled antics at the official Twitter page of her movie, Chastity Bites (http://www.twitter.com/ChastityBites) ! Follow her!
- Keep up with Stacie Ponder’s antics at her incomparable blog, Final Girl (http://finalgirl.blogspot.com)
- Stay up to date on the films of Mark Bessenger, including the upcoming Confessions, by following him on Facebook! (https://www.facebook.com/mark.bessenger)
