Anticipating Valentine’s Day: Stream Grown-Up Love Stories
Love Affair 1939 Based on a story by Leo McCarey and Mildred Cram. Directed by Leo McCarey. Painter/infamous playboy Michel Marnet (Charles Boyer) and singer Terry McKay (Irene Dunne) are passengers on a ship crossing from Europe. Michel is engaged to heiress Lois Clarke (Astrid Allwyn) who will support him in the manner to which he’s become accustomed. Terry is engaged to Kenneth Bradley (Lee Bowman), a wealthy businessman who’s given her the finer things, perhaps including an apartment. Both will be met upon arrival.
Terry and Michel are attracted, but it’s when he invites her to spend an afternoon with his elderly grandmother Janou (Maria Ouspenskaya – wonderful) that the pair realize they’ve fallen in love. Never having worked, Michel says he needs to find out if he can earn enough money to support a relationship. They make a date to meet atop the Empire State Building in six months time. He’s there, but tragedy prevents her appearance. The rest of the film concerns how they find one another again. Tender, poignant, sentimental. Rent on Amazon Prime.
Cyrano de Bergerac 1950 Directed by Stanley Kramer.with Jose Ferrer. Terrific. This is the version that inspired Steve Martin’s iteration. Free with Amazon Prime.
Love in the Afternoon 1957 Based on the Claude Anet novel “Ariane, jeune fille russe” (Ariane, Young Russian Girl). Directed by Billy Wilder. Completely enchanting. Widowed private detective Claude Chavasse (Maurice Chevalier) specializes in tracking unfaithful husbands and wives. His daughter Ariane (Audrey Hepburn) is more than a little conversant with papa’s files. The infamous subject of his latest client’s complaint, American Frank Flanagan (Gary Cooper), seems particularly exciting. When Ariane overhears the client threaten to shoot his wife and Flanagan, she rushes out of cello rehearsal and warns him just in time.
Ariane then becomes a woman of mystery to the playboy businessman many years her senior. She makes up provocative stories of endless lovers. He’s increasingly, maddeningly attracted to her, and knows better, but…With a pitch-perfect John McGiver as a suspicious, cuckolded husband. Both Yul Brynner and Cary Grant were first offered the role of Flanagan. Wilder chose Cooper because he thought the actor would be good company on location. He was. Rent on Amazon Prime.
Roxanne 1987 A modern retelling of Edmond Rostand’s verse play Cyrano de Bergerac with adaptation by Steve Martin. Directed by Fred Schepisi. C.D. “Charlie” Bales, (Steve Martin playing the Cyrano role), has an enormous nose about which he’s understandably sensitive. Here, a fire chief, Bales is also smart, extremely articulate, athletic, charismatic, romantic, and funny. Daryl Hannah plays graduate astronomy student Roxanne Kowalski. The hero is infatuated, but sure he hasn’t got a chance.
Writing love letters to her in the name of chronically shy, not very bright, but handsome fireman, Chris (Rick Rossovich), is a way to express his feelings. Unlike the play, this has a happy ending. Well written, directed, and acted. Buoyant. Martin wrote 25 drafts over three years. Rent on Amazon Prime and Netflix.
Bridges of Madison County 1995 Based on the novel by Robert James Waller. Produced, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. Get out your handkerchiefs! Understated and beautiful. (Though her kids are an irritating framework.) The children of Italian war bride/farmer’s wife, Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep) are shocked to find vestiges of a secret love among possessions their mother has left after death.
We look back at her brief time with photographer Robert Kinkaid (Eastwood), two souls clearly meant for one another. The story was filmed chronologically from Francesca’s point of view, “because it was important to work that way. We were two people getting to know each other, in real time, as actors and as the characters.” Free with Amazon Prime.
Away From Her 2007 Based on Alice Monroe’s story The Bear Came Over the Mountain. Written and directed by Sarah Polley. Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (the still luminous Julie Christie), married many years, have retired to a rustic house at the edge of the Canadian woods. When they begin to see unmistakable signs of her Alzheimer’s, Fiona calmly secures Grant’s commitment to take her to a nursing home if she can no longer cope.
The time comes. Fiona is situated in a pleasant facility. Grant becomes omnipresent, neither allowing his wife to adjust, nor fully comprehending changes in her psyche. He’s forced to accept dramatic change (and loss) when she develops a relationship with another resident. Adroitly written and played. Painful; realistic. Also with Olympia Dukakis (splendid), Michel Murphy, Wendy Crewson. Rent on Amazon Prime.
Last Chance Harvey 2008 Written and Directed by Joel Hopkins. If you know about this small, independent film, you get cinema points. Divorced American jingle composer, Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman), has arrived in London for his daughter’s wedding, only to be ostracized. Single Londoner Kate Walker (Emma Thompson), who collects statistics from airport passengers, has yet another disastrous blind date. Both are depressed, at loose ends, and dining alone at an airport bar.
Looking for someone, anyone to talk to, Harvey recalls Kate from the terminal and apologizes for being rude. They walk and talk. Finding a sympathetic soul and reticent to go alone, he invites Kate to his daughter’s wedding reception. Presumptions are made and dispelled. They agree to meet on a bench at Kensington the next day. She shows up, Harvey doesn’t, but he has a really good reason.
A deftly executed portrait of middle-aged loneliness. Several of Harvey and Kate’s conversations were ad-libbed while keeping within the dictates of the plot. Rent on Amazon Prime and Netflix.
Lovely Still 2008 Written and Directed by Nik Fackler. Secretly brought together by his boss at a grocery store (the elderly man holds a menial job), Robert Malone (Martin Landau) falls in love with Mary (Ellen Burstyn), the mother of a neighbor. Robert lives in the somewhat altered world of senile dementia. The two get along well and share pre-Christmas activities. It becomes obvious that she knows him better than she lets on. Immensely sensitive. Fine acting. Free with Amazon Prime and Netflix.
I’ll See You in My Dreams 2015 Directed, co-written, and co-produced by Brett Haley. Attractive widow Carol Peterson (Blythe Danner) has not had a serious relationship in 20 years. Her closest friends live at a retirement home, while she maintains independence in a house. The ladies play golf and cards. When Carol serendipitously runs into Bill (Sam Elliott) several times, he asks her on a date. They begin to see one another; he spends the night. He asks whether she’s thought about remarrying.
Alternate perspective on whether to invest in love is embodied by a troubled pool boy she befriends (just that) who can’t see any future except taking care of his mother, and Carol’s daughter, Katherine, with her own set of issues. Just when the heroine is looking forward to life again, the rug is pulled from under her. Still, outlook is now more positive. Not earth shaking, but pretty to look at, nicely underplayed, and who doesn’t like watching Sam Elliott. Rent on Amazon Prime and Netflix.
Paris Can Wait 2016 Written, co-produced, and directed by Eleanor Coppola. A cinematic/romantic travelogue. Ann (Diane Lane) is married to workaholic producer, Michael Lockwood (Alec Baldwin). They plan to leave the Cannes Film Festival together for a long overdue Paris vacation, but Michael has a fire to put out elsewhere.
As Ann has an ear infection and can’t fly, Michael’s business partner Jacques (Arnaud Viard) offers to drive. What should be a direct trip turns into a leisurely sojourn. Jacques has friends along the way and is a gourmand; they meet people and dine exquisitely, gradually getting to know one another. Ann relaxes into the beautiful environment.
Jacques appreciates everything Michael now takes for granted. His companion responds, yet nothing untoward occurs…until a single kiss. He asks to meet her back in San Francisco. Good fantasy seeding. Rent on Amazon Prime.
An Affair to Remember 1957 Directed by Leo McCarey. A remake/update of Love Affair. The American Film Institute considers this the greatest romance of all time. It’s certainly high among them. Infamous playboy, Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant), flirts with former singer Terry McKay (Kerr) on a transatlantic crossing where, because of his notoriety, they’re plagued by gossip. (Repartee is swell.) He’s on his way home to socialite fiancé, Lois Clark (Neva Patterson), she to businessman fiancé, Kenneth Bradley (Richard Denning), a man who’s played Pygmalion in her life. Their fate is sealed on a touching visit to Nickie’s grandmother (Kathleen Nesbitt) at Villefranche-sur-Mer. This scene will get to you in both films.
In love, but otherwise entangled, the incipient couple agree to meet atop the Empire State Building after six months, both breaking off from their intendeds. Terry goes back to performing (elsewhere), Nickie tries to earn a living as a painter. (Formerly a hobby.) When she doesn’t keep the date, he’s unaware she’s been in a car accident running to meet him and grows bitter. She disappears, taking a teaching job at an elementary school, unsure whether she’ll walk again.
They get a glimpse of one another at theater, but he doesn’t see her wheelchair. Terry is heartbroken, but proud. Serendipity leads Nickie to the truth (at Christmas!) and a happy ending. Get out your handkerchiefs! Critics were not kind looking at the piece measuring its realism. The public disagreed. Grand chemistry. Manages to be both sophisticated and deeply romantic. Rent on Amazon Prime..
Opening Photo: Bigstock
