With all of the “summer romance” business we’ve seen in our favorite movies, we’ve become optimistic (to a point) about our own quests for the quintessential summer love experience. We want to find a guy as perfect as Noah, perform the Dirty Dancing “lift,” make out anywhere and everywhere, and leave high school behind by taking off in a flying convertible. These movies and the characters to whom we’ve become so indebted over the years have shown us versions of love that – as fun as they are to watch – are often completely intangible. Of course, we’ll never stop loving all this love, but we can resent it just a little… until we manage to find our own quirky-yet-perfect summer romances.
Dirty Dancing
Why We Love It: Patrick. Swayze. As a movie/dance icon, when Swayze swept Jennifer Grey off of her feet, he somehow did the same to millions of girls on the other side of the screen – and continues to do so today. We can’t get enough of his gorgeous face, impeccable body, sweet vulnerability and legendary one-liners. We don’t even need to quote it, but here it is anyway: “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” It just doesn’t get old.
Why We Hate It: Aside from the fact that Dirty Dancing was nearly ruined by a cheese-ball follow-up, Dirty Dancing Havana Nights, it’s really just devastating that places like Kellerman’s no longer exist – it’s called the Hamptons now, and it just ain’t as wholesome as a family holiday camp – in addition to the fact that normal guys can’t do that wonderfully romantic and iconic lift. As much as we love and respect the late Swayze, we totally don’t appreciate the impossibly high standards he set for our suitors.
Grease
Why We Love It: From football games to slumber parties to cheerleading practice, Grease reminds us of our high school glory days. Though the actors and actresses look way too old to convincingly play 18-year-olds, they do a pretty good job of reminding us of all of the stereotypes and stupid stunts (Making out in cars? Having sleepovers that were meant to be crashed by guys? Gossiping about sexcapades during lunchtime?) we used to pull back then – all of these things, of course, dictated by an unforgettable soundtrack.
Why We Hate It: Was it really necessary for Sandy to cast aside her wholesomeness and trade it in for a black spandex jumpsuit, obnoxious hoop earrings, wild hair, a cigarette and hot red stilettos? When we were younger, the last scene in Grease was a happy one – it even had a “fun house” song and dance – but it seems a little different now. While we’re thrilled that Sandy finally gets T-Bird Danny Zuko to commit to her, it seems like she completely warps herself to fit in and impress him, something that collegiettes should never be pressured into doing. She looks hot, but she’s definitely no longer the Sandy we met at the beach…
Mamma Mia
Why We Love It: Well, who doesn’t love ABBA (ironically or un-ironically, it’s still love)? Their music is epic and can make anyone smile. Put Amanda Seyfried at the center of a story about love and, above all else, weddings, and we’re sold. It’s a cute (albeit unrealistic) story that lets us sing along with enjoyment.
Why We Hate It: That being said, it’s just incredibly cheesy. When you take a movie from Broadway to the big screen, there’s always a certain amount of corniness that’ll result with the tender scenes that develop into random break-out-into-songs moments. The relationships that we’re meant to fall in love with become absurd and unconvincing. And also, those costumes… what?
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500 Days of Summer
Why We Love It: Zooey Deschanel is so quirky! She is great, and her character is totally cute and actually kind of pretty, but like in a not-so-perfect way, which makes her super relatable and definitely down-to-earth and, like, everything she says is either really spot-on, or a little bit off so that it kinda makes you think about things a little harder and once you do, you realize she really does have a point. Summer is just really interesting and atypical.
Why We Hate It: Summer is such a b*tch! Ugh, honestly, screw you Summer. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is adorable and obsessed with you and is literally every girl’s dream nerdy-hot guy and you straight up messed him up. Why do you continue to insist that you don’t want him to be your boyfriend? And then you go and get engaged?! Really, love doesn’t exist? Really? Really, Summer? You suck.
Wet Hot American Summer
Why We Love It: Ahh, summer camp: where nothing mattered except when you were next going to get to socialize with the opposite sex and how stealthily you would need to be to sneak away to get in a quick make-out sesh. Well, maybe there were a few other things that we loved about summer camp – and surely, Wet Hot American Summer satirizes most of them. It makes us nostalgic about our days spent running around making our counselors crazy and saying/doing the wackiest stuff we could think of, because that’s exactly what we see unfold in this movie.
Why We Hate It: Yes, making out was an instrumental part in all of our summers. However, our make-out seshes were nowhere near as disgusting as the ones we see happen in Wet Hot American Summer. The shameless use of tongue in this movie makes us want to look away.
The Notebook
Why We Love It: Ryan Gosling is in it, duh. Oh, and that casual kiss in the rain… duh.
Why We Hate It: It literally makes us – and even our guy friends – sob every single time. Why? Well, we get so emotional about it that we’re not even sure exactly what it is. Could it be that there’s a slim chance that any guy would ever take the time to write us 365 letters in a year (thanks, iPhone, e-mail, etc.)? What about his insistence that “It wasn’t over. It still isn’t over?” Or could it be the frustration we feel with Allie for not remembering her beautiful romance with the most beautiful man on earth? Or could it be that overwhelming sense of happiness – demonstrated by a well of tears – we feel with the “true love conquers all” ending? We’d love to know what it feels like to be Rachel McAdams for a day.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Why We Love It: Our love for this movie was inevitable given our middle school days’ worship of the books by Ann Brashares. Growing up, we all had best friends like these, and boy would it have been nice to be able to share the same pair of jeans as opposed to each of us having to buy the same ones. The Sisterhood movies brought our favorite girls to life – and introduced us to Blake Lively, so thanks for that – and illustrated the “girlfriend” bonds we had and showed us how they’d come to change, but never really disappear.
Why We Hate It: We can’t understand why Rory from Gilmore Girls gets to spend a summer in the most magnificent country in the world, only to end up falling in love with an unfairly hot Greek god, and we do not. We want a Kostas, too, now, and they told us this movie was supposed to be relatable. Well, we’re not getting to Greece anytime soon, and that’s just not fair.
The hot guys in movies always seem to know what to say, they’re always looking magnificently scruffy, everyone has fantastic bodies, and girls literally get swept off their feet. Everything about these summer romances is idealized, and while they are extremely entertaining (great eye candy!), they set us up for a whole lot of letdowns once we snap ourselves back to reality. We can enjoy their songs, dances, perfectly crafted lines and above all their kisses, but at the end of the day, we’ll have to deal with the imperfections of real life romance – though it’s a little rockier than a movie scene, it’ll probably (hopefully) end up being that much more fulfilling.