We’re coming up on Valentine’s Day. The time of year when the pungent stench of over-priced roses fill the air and dudes the world over collectively mutter “Chicks like candles, right?”
Perhaps you’ll be kicking off the festivities early this weekend. Maybe a rom-com will be in order. Fear not, they’re not all garbage fires. There are some genuinely good fauxmance films out there, some of which may not make you want to projectile everywhere.
Stan
When Harry Met Sally
Who can forget THAT scene. Also, it portrays a pretty god damn realistic portrayal of how relationships can go down.
Stan: There’s never been a friendship quite like Harry and Sally’s. From faking an orgasm at the corner deli, to debating the odds of having great sex with a guy named “Sheldon”, there’s nothing Harry and Sally don’t do together. Well, almost nothing.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Okay yes, Andie MacDowell shouldn’t be allowed to act. But the Matthew/Gareth subplot is gorgeous and ahead of its time. Also, Kristin Scott Thomas slays as everyone’s sarcastic, darkly clad spirit animal.
Stan: A reserved Englishman meets attractive American Carrie at a wedding and falls in love with her, but his inability to express his feelings seems to forestall any possibility of relationship – until they meet again and again.
Wedding Crashers
I genuinely love this movie. It’s ridiculous, funny and has a really decent cast. I mean, the Christopher Walken alone is worth it.
Stan: Guided by a set of “wedding crashing rules,” John and Jeremy can charm their way into any wedding…and into the hearts of every bridesmaid. But, John breaks the rules and falls for the daughter of the US Secretary of Treasury.
P.S. I Love You
This made my cold, dead heart feel again.
Stan: Holly is beautiful, smart and married to the love of her life — a passionate, funny and impetuous Irishman named Gerry. So when Gerry’s life is taken by an illness, it takes the life out of Holly.
The Fifth Element
What? He literally finds the perfect woman. It counts.
Stan: New York cab driver Korben Dallas didn’t mean to be a hero, but he just picked up the kind of fare that only comes along every five thousand years: A perfect beauty, a perfect being, a perfect weapon.
Netflix
The Wedding Singer
Steve Buscemi and the greatest romance song of all time, ‘Love Stinks’, makes this a classic. Plus it’s genuinely a sweet movie.
Netflix: After his fiancee leaves him at the altar, wedding singer Robbie befriends reception-hall waitress Julia, who enlists him to help plan her wedding.
Her
A unique exploration of the notion of love that may be increasingly relevant in the near future. It will punch you right in the feels.
Netflix: Love comes to a lonely writer in the sleekest of packages when he finds himself falling for the advanced operating system he bought to run his life.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
This is a Charlie Kaufman film, so prepare for some inevitable mind fuckery. It can be easy to dismiss this film as a bleak thought experiment, but there is some sweetness and hope weaved into this narrative. You will want to yell at the characters a bit though.
Netflix: After learning that his ex-girlfriend had an experimental medical procedure to purge all memories of him, a man decides to do the same with her.
Friends With Kids
I really dig this different approach to relationships, friendships and family with some great comedic actors. It’s messy. It’s depressing. It’s realistic.
Netflix: Friends Jason and Julie decide that the way to have kids without sacrificing their social lives or careers is to raise a child together platonically.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
It’s silly, fun and involves a vampire puppet musical at one point. It’s a yes from me.
Netflix: After his TV star girlfriend, Sarah, breaks his heart, Peter can’t move on because she’s vacationing at the same resort in Hawaii.