Another lap around the sun means that we get to experience yet another Valentine’s Day. The day when couples post about how aggressively happy they are, and how their relationship has been the best year of their life. Captions that proclaim that a significant other is their soulmate, and they are the luckiest in the world. This is of course followed by the thinly veiled hatred they have for their partner, when they say “we have had our ups and downs but we have stayed strong” or “even though you drive me crazy I still love you…”
These social media posts follow one another, each with the same subtle bragging about their love publicly. Scrolling on social media makes single people feel especially lonely. Even though we all know that they are in an on again-off again relationship that makes everyone nauseated by their drama and shouldn’t really be jealous.
Ok, maybe I’m projecting a little, but the holiday was generally insufferable before the advent of social media, and now that people put every facet of their life on the internet, it’s worse. However, instead of dealing with real relationships and people that I know, I choose to spend Valentine’s Day watching movies and avoiding Instagram. But this holiday gives single people a whole range of emotions and I’m attempting to cover them all. So without further ado, here are my recommendations for movies to watch for my fellow single people on Valentine’s Day.
I Just Wanna Cry at a Breakup
My first category of recommendations is a movie you can watch when you feel the need to watch a train wreck relationship crashing and burning and feel comfortable crying. A movie where you know they don’t end up together, but cry at the end anyway.
The Last Five Years, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan is in my opinion, the most underrated musical movie of all time. This movie musical is an adaptation of Jason Robert Brown’s musical of the same name, which is heavily based on his real life divorce. So much so, that his ex-wife threatened legal action due to how autobiographical it was.
The movie follows two perspectives of a married couple; every song is from one of the character’s perspectives and they switch perspectives every song. Cathy’s songs are in a backwards timeline, opening with her discovering her husband left, and Jamie’s songs in a linear timeline, opening with their first date. Going from Cathy being devastated over the end of their relationship, then immediately jumping to Jamie being over the moon in love with her, is heartbreaking. If you want to cry watching two incredible actors sing through their disastrous five year relationship, I cannot recommend this movie enough.
I need to Defrost my heart
Next I have a movie that will warm your potentially broken heart, has beautiful visuals and a minor romance storyline that makes it perfect for this February holiday. It is an animated movie, but this isn’t the run of the mill cartoon for kids, this is a Studio Ghibli film. Besides Disney and Dreamworks, Studio Ghibli is maybe the most iconic animation studio and for a very, very good reason.
Howl’s Moving Castle is simply the most charming and whimsical movie I have ever seen and it deserves to be on your Valentine’s Day rotation. Sophie is cursed by a witch to become an old woman. Forced to leave home, Sophie becomes the house keeper for the infamous wizard Howl, in his moving castle. They team up to end the war going on in the kingdom, and Sophie learns how to break both her curse and the one on Howl’s heart.
Besides being breathtaking to look at, this movie is wonderfully quirky. A talking fire demon had me laughing out loud, a walking mechanical castle looks both homey and about to fall apart at the same time, you will find joy in every frame of this film. Howl and Sophie’s dynamic is adorable and her giving his heart back both literally and figuratively is my favorite scene. I fell in love with this movie the first time I watched it, and have no doubt that it will warm even the coldest of hearts this February 14th.
I might die alone but at least they’re Happy
Even though you may be single and bitter and blocking every person you know that is in a relationship, watching a movie with an adorable love story can completely change your emotions. And this love story is almost two hundred years old and was written by Jane Austen, which still holds up today. This is the original enemies to lovers story that is the perfect tale for this holiday.
Pride and Prejudice (2005) is my preferred version of this story, but if you want to watch the six hour mini series instead, I will not judge you. However, I think the movie is more bang for your buck in terms of length and it is a lot more interesting. Elizabeth Bennet is one of five daughters, and her mother wants them to get married as soon as possible. When the family attends a ball, her sister and Mr. Bingley hit it off, but Bingley’s companion Mr. Darcy is incredibly rude to Elizabeth and they become enemies. Or so she thinks, because Mr. Darcy keeps crossing paths with her, and the story takes off from there.
With an unforgettable score and lush visuals, you could not know a single aspect of the story and still be engrossed by this film. The romance takes center stage in this adaptation, and I’m not complaining about it. Kiera Knightley shines in this role and this historical drama will have you sucked in from the first moment.
So those are my recommendations for my fellow single folks to binge on Valentine’s Day, instead of mindlessly scrolling on Instagram. If you are in a relationship, you can watch these too, but these were not picked out for you in mind. Also, why are you here anyway? Go through your camera roll and prepare your post, you have an annoying caption to write!