This is part of a series of No Shame Movie Reviews. For reasons I won’t speculate and rant about now, we have been told that only some movies are worth enjoying. Only artsy movies with a meaningful and/or ambiguous message, perhaps. To that, I say phooey. I say that you should be able to watch and enjoy any movie you want – from low-budget children’s movies to dramas about the hopelessly romantic. If you enjoy them, then why the heck should you not be able to watch them without shame?
I thought this review would be easy to write, since Stuck in Love is probably my absolute favorite movie ever. Turns out, not so much. When you really love something, it’s hard to put that into words.
But I’m going to try.
This movie is about love, yes, but it’s about more than that. It’s about family and dedication and loyalty. It’s about when you should hold on to the past and when it’s time to move on. It’s about taking chances, following your dreams, not letting life slip past you. It’s about love, in so many different ways.
As Stuck in Love drew to a close, I was laughing. Then I was crying. Then I was laughing while I was crying. Yes, I tend to cry during movies quite a bit more often than your average person. But Stuck in Love managed to tug on my heartstrings in a way that most movies just don’t. I’ve seen this movie probably a dozen times by now, and could likely recite the last scene to you word for word. But that doesn’t stop me from caring every single time I watch it.
That’s what this movie does so well. It makes you care. It makes you care about a man who’s desperate for his ex-wife to return and strangely confident that she will. It makes you care about a girl who’s so devastated by her parents’ divorce that she refuses to admit love is even a possibility. And it makes you care about a boy who falls head over heels for a girl you just know is going to be trouble.
You don’t leave this movie – or at least I didn’t – thinking about how well-developed the characters are, or how wonderfully structured the plot is. Because those things are true, you just leave thinking about these people and their lives. It doesn’t feel like a thing that someone wrote and then hired people to say in front of a camera. It’s so good of a movie that it doesn’t feel like a movie.
Stuck in Love is about a family of writers, and is quite self-reverential in that way. Not in that the characters realize they’re in a movie or anything like that, but simply in recognizing the importance of creative works, in realizing how deeply they can touch you. Your emotions, your fears, your goals – whether you’re creating or consuming, the written word has the power to do this. And – as a film major reviewing movies, I feel obligated to say this – so can film. Just because something is “fake” or “made up” doesn’t mean that it’s not important, doesn’t mean that you’re a fool if you cry at end.
Just in case you haven’t picked up on it yet, I just really love Stuck in Love.
If you only watch one of these movies I’m reviewing, watch this one. Because it really is fantastic. I promise.
Image credits: dbkstreamofconsciousness.com; aceshowbiz.com; imdb.com; Netflix.com