Movie Meme, Day 6: A Movie That Always Makes Me Cry

The first film that came to my mind which possibly gives it away to some of you, but there it goes (and no if you guess I’m not telling you; yet). I didn’t want to post about it just yet though. So I racked my brains…lies actually, three other films jump out at me. What makes us tearful? Death does, departure does, and inertia does. It makes me lose some significant “cool” points but I shed a tear for each.

    
The Hours (REVIEWED) – for the inertia

I understand that we only get a day in the lives of each character, and only so much can happen in a day, but it’s depressing how even though so much seems to happen nothing really changes. Or instead, it’s strange how the more things change, the more…they don’t. Clarissa probably moves the furthest, but even that is volatile. Laura Brown’s life has been wrought with regrets; Richard’s life was (for him) a disaster, and Virginia Woolf’s life is enough of an exercise in ennui and sadness that even the world’s biggest cynic could be moved.

The Remains of the Day (REVIEWED) – for the departure

The Remains of the Day, ironically being the last of the successful films from Merchant Ivory, has an ending so bleak it can’t NOT make me just a little teary eyed. Stevens reunion with the former head-maid should be more momentous, she knows it. He’s too set in his ways to reciprocate, too set in his ways to be anything but to stoic (albeit polite) man he was raised as. When Emma Thompson tearfully waves goodbye to him…who can blame her?

         
West Side Story (REVIEWED) – for the death(s)

I can never hear Bernstein / Sondheim’s “Somewhere” with getting depressed (but I’m a masochist, so I keep on listening). I’ll keep on saying that I think Richard Beymer is remarkable in West Side Story, as is Natalie Wood (of course). It makes me sadder than Romeo & Juliet because at least they were down with their deaths (well, a little). I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that he dies with a song, or maybe it’s Natalie’s rant afterwards (what a monologue!). Whatever it is, it makes me want to cry. Yes indeed, yes indeed. (and they killed Russ Tamblyn? Who the hell does that?)

          
How weird am I? Would you cry at any of these? 
          

And yes, this is courtesy of the glorious MEME. I'm loving it so far...