Love and Happy Endings

     Do you realize how difficult it is to find a classic love story that has a happy ending? When my daughters were growing up, I wanted to expose the girls to the movies everyone talks about – but Sarah and Amanda were not pleased with movies that did not end with the couple living happily ever after.

      What was I teaching them about love, if lovers could not be together?

     Gone With the Wind is the best example of this. I would have been remiss not to share this classic flick with my daughters. And yet, when the final credits rolled – the girls were very vocal in their displeasure – they did not know ahead of time how it would end, and to quote Amanda, “Why did you make me sit through 4 hours for that ending?” The history, the characters, the build-up – none of that was worth sitting through if Rhett and Scarlet were not going to end up together!

     So began the search for love stories with happy endings.

     Julia Roberts flicks were usually a sure thing – but can we call any of them classics? 

     The girls and I actually went to the movie theater to see The Runaway Bride when it came out – afterward we went somewhere to eat, and I asked Sarah and Amanda which one of Julia Roberts' fiances in the movie was their favorite? There was quite the menu of good looking young men to pick from – so I was delightfully surprised when the girls responded, “Well, you know, you can never go wrong with Richard Gere!” - Perhaps I was doing something right in this child rearing after all!

     Of course, the Meg Ryan movies have to be included here also. Not only is French Kiss cute with a happy ending, but When Harry Met Sally actually does rank up there with the classics – and the girls loved it.

     Somewhere along the way, Sarah and Amanda discovered The Princess Bride – not only is this movie, I am sure, on each of their top 10 lists, but they can quote entire passages, and some of their philosophies of life come from that story – such as as you wish, and life is not fair, but it is more fair than death (which I think Sarah says comes from the book which she read after loving the movie so much). 

     The Princess Bride is something I learned from my daughters while I was trying to share love stories with them.

      My own personal favorite love story movie with a happy ending is one called The Butcher's Wife – fate is thrown into the theme, and I am sucker for stories about fate. Bennie and Joon is another that we recommend.

      A few years after the Gone With the Wind fiasco, Sarah was away at college, and I thought I might experiment with Amanda, who was by then in high school, and share a classic story with her that does not have the happy ending just to see if her tastes had changed with some aging.

       I rented Casa Blanca.

      And all I said to Amanda before the movie began was that she could be mad at me if she did not like it. We watched Casa Blanca in silence. When it was over, I turned to Bodie and asked, “would you believe that some folks think this is the most romantic movie of all time?”

      And Amanda said, “Oh yes!”

      One of the more rewarding moments of being a Mom!

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