After taking all of my housemates to see a film that has recently been nominated for the most Oscars since Titanic, and involves a stellar cast including the extremely dreamy and husband-worthy lead actor Ryan Gosling, you may be wondering why I would even need to write this article. But unfortunately, some of you are also in the same position and have come seeking help to rebuild a relationship that is crumbling: your housemate has uttered the words ‘I don’t really get what all the hype is about?’. I know, I was shocked too. I even had to stop myself from having a full-blown fist fight with my own housemate on Lenton Boulevard during the late hours of the night. After that fateful evening I have often questioned our friendship and wondered whether we can ever rebuild what was lost last Friday night. But I told myself that a film- even a film as brilliant as La La Land- couldn’t break the two of us apart. So I decided to construct a self- help guide for those who are also going through a hard time with friends who have turned their backs on Emma and Ryan. I hope this helps…
1. Understand that your friendship will suffer a few setbacks following your housemates question: ‘what was the film even about, I didn’t understand it’. Breathe heavily for a few minutes and turn the conversation onto something that you both can agree on: like how amazing Ryan Gosling was in every scene, especially his sultry voice and incredibly dramatic hair.
2. Make sure La La Land doesn’t come up in conversation. If it does, step away and make up an excuse like ‘I really need to fill up my water bottle’ or ‘oh it seems I have forgotten my stapler at home and I need to run 20 minutes in the opposite direction to retrieve it’. This will save any confrontation happening again.
3. Remind yourself of happy memories you have shared with your housemate and friend. The laughs, the smiles, these happy thoughts will eventually cloud any anger you feel after they have just carved out your heart and served it to you medium rare.
4. Remember they are only human. They do not understand art like you do and this is okay. Not all of us can be perfect and this is your time to understand that people make mistakes. If you keep repeating this mantra, eventually you will be able to talk to your housemate again about topics such as: memes, and university hell, and soon your relationship will be back to normal.
5. Maybe they are blind and deaf. Maybe they accidentally walked into the wrong film. Or maybe they fell asleep. These are all valid excuses that you can convince yourself of and will help you heal in the long term…even if they are extremely false.
6. And the final step: understand that everyone has different opinions, and in order to preserve your friendship, you could sarcastically agree with some of their criticisms: e.g. maybe La La Land was quite slow in the middle of the film, maybe there were too many scenes that could have been cut, maybe the storyline was a bit strange. I understand that this is one of the hardest steps but believe me it can be the most successful.
All of these steps will help you in the long-term to rebuild your relationship with your housemate before you know it. However, just remember in order to preserve your friendship stay as far away from La La Land as humanly possible…even avoiding the cinema for the rest of the month may be the only way to keep your relationship intact! Eventually everything will be fine, at least until the DVD is released.
Edited by Nicole Swain
Sources:
http://imgur.com/gallery/3WZFuDw
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http://68.media.tumblr.com/ff34a96d24179ef52f33107120f73d07/tumblr_n9l3a…
http://cdn.gurl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/growing-apart-jealous-fri…
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http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/la-la-land-ryan-gosli…