One of my current favorite movies on netflix is ‘Someone Great.’ For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a break-up romcom film set in NYC. The main character Jenny has just broken up with her boyfriend Nate of 8 years after she has just received a job opportunity in San Francisco. She reaches out to her best girlfriends about the breakup and they have wild adventures as they try to get tickets to one of the best music events in NYC.
Most romcoms like this end with the girl getting back with her ex or finding a new unprecedented romantic interest you might not have seen coming. The reason why I like this movie so much apart from the rest of them is it is realistic. Spoiler: she does not get back with her ex or find a new romantic partner. This is about her, working on herself and her career. Not every happy story has to end with requited love, sometimes a happy ending can just be moving on.
Another thing I admire about this movie is that they don’t villainize the ex. He’s not some bad guy who cheated on her which would make him easy to get over because he obviously sucked. He was, as the movie says, “someone great.” Someone who she loved and someone who loved her. Someone she spent 8 years of her life with. Someone who was caring and genuine. That’s something that’s not often portrayed in hollywood films, the process of getting over someone who was great. I recently had to find this out for myself. I’ve never had a breakup with someone who wasn’t a dick or did something extremely dickish. I had my first breakup with someone who I can genuinely say was a great person even if they did some not great things. Someone who was in fact caring and genuine. Someone I will always love and always remember, which makes it 100x harder to get over this person. I feel like it’s hard for us to realize and humble ourselves to see that the person we lost was great, but it just wasn’t meant to be for whatever screwed up reason that may be.
There is a scene on the subway after a complete drunken night with the girls where Jenny writes a note to Nate about their breakup, which reads:
“Do you think I can have one more kiss? I’ll find closure on your lips and then I’ll go. Maybe also one more breakfast, and one more lunch, and one more dinner. I’ll be full and happy and we can part. But in between meals, maybe we can lie in bed one more time. One more prolonged moment where time suspends indefinitely as I rest my head on your chest. My hope is if we add up the one mores, they will equal a lifetime and I’ll never have to get to the part where I let you go. But that’s not real is it? There are no more one mores. I met you when everything was new and exciting and the possibilities of the world seemed endless, and they still are. For you, for me. But not for us. Somewhere between then and now, here and there, I guess we didn’t just grow apart, we grew up. When something breaks if the pieces are large enough you can fix it. Unfortunately, sometimes things don’t break. They shatter. But when you let the light in, shattered glass will glitter. And in those moments, when the pieces of what we were catch the sun, I’ll remember just how beautiful it was. Just how beautiful it’ll always be. Because it was us and we were magic. Forever.”
This part definitely caught me in my feels, I have written numberous letters like these to my ex, which can be very therapeutic. An important point is adressed, that sometimes love just isn’t enough and sometimes just because you love someone with every fiber in your body doesn’t mean they’ll love you back or want you back. Heartbreak and breakups are a part of growing up, and realizing that your ex isn’t an evil person even though how they made you feel feels catastrophic, doesn’t make them a bad person. She mentions that even though the possibilities are over for the two of them they’re not over for them individually. Sometimes when you lose something you thought was so good you think you’ll never find it again, that you’ve experienced all the good and love that this life has to offer you. But that’s not the case.The possibilities are endless. There will be more first times, just not with the person you wanted and suspected them to be with.
I love how this movie is real. It’s real about love and it’s real about breakups and shows beautiful life long friendships. We need to realize that not everyone we lose is because they are an awful person, sometimes they are fantastic people just not fantastic for us. Also that not all happy endings involve a horse and carriage or are how she fantasizes at the end of the movie by the fountain, him coming back to her saying he messed up, haven’t we all been there? But sometimes a happy ending is moving on, being open to the new possibilities that life has to offer you, and being surrounded by great friends.