There’s no reason you should know this, and perhaps no reason to care, but I am a hopeless romantic. I am sentimental to a fault. I cry with joy very easily. And I am easily moved by music, sight, and sound.
My love of movies runs deep, and there are many movie endings I adore. I was thinking today about three particular endings which always make me well up, and I was curious what they had in common.
I would say the common elements are:
- They’re all decades old (so, yeah, I’m old-fashioned);
- They involve a man and woman in love, but in a troubled way;
- They involve some form of desire for the two to be united which, in the end, in some way, they are;
- Music is a vital component of each scene, and pretty much the third character;
- And they always end with a sense of hope for the future.
This is the part of cinema I treasure most. I want to leave the theatre feeling changed for the better. Not necessarily happier. But transformed in some way. These ending scenes all express the power of romantic love, which is a force in which I have never lost faith.
