Happy belated Valentine’s Day all! (Though you may remember from last week when we wrote about TV couples, us cupcakes don’t believe in the hype. Love everyday, we say!) This is part two of our February series and we wrote about our all-time favorite movie couples (this was a fun one!).
Enjoy!
Johnny & Baby, Dirty Dancing
By: Funfetti
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I’ve had the same favorite movie couple since I was in second grade. Johnny Castle and Baby Houseman from Dirty Dancing. Hands down, no other couple has come within a promising distance of their caliber. Everyone knows the story. A naïve 17-year old girl goes on vacation with her parents, and uncharacteristically falls in love with a dance instructor.
It’s easy to find the appeal.
Another forbidden love story, with a chase. Baby’s father holds her to a certain regard – she will go to an all-girls college (Mt. Holyoke) and later, join the Peace Corps. Change the world. (No pressure or anything.) Never in his life did he think she would “defy” him, and wear makeup, perform passionate dances in front of an audience, and quite possibly the worst thing ever, fall in love with a much-older dance instructor who does not have a college degree (gasp!).
I felt really connected to this story on many levels. Like Baby, I was the self-proclaimed good girl and my dad was always really tough on me. There was nothing I could do that pleased him enough. So to watch Baby break out of her shell with someone like Johnny (a guy, who even when I was seven, I never thought could be in my league) and show her dad that she was made of much more than he ever thought. (The scene where Dr. Houseman looks at Baby and says, “You looked wonderful out there” gets me every single time.)
As viewers, you felt the possibility that this “dance” relationship could turn into something more, or fall on its face from the first time we saw Baby in her big cardigan carrying a watermelon. Baby was obviously attracted to Johnny from the beginning, and even when she first volunteered to cover for Penny – he totally doubted her. It took him some time to see her as a partner. In every sense of the word. Throw in your pregnant ex-girlfriend/partner, a boss that doesn’t respect you, and a father who’d rather see his daughter with a nerdy asshole. There was a lot going against them. Before and after they started their affair.
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I love how they were two characters from opposite upbringings and were able to find something they needed in each other – Baby got a big dose of reality and Johnny was able to embrace her idealistic nature. They balanced each other out. And Johnny and Baby had chemistry. Hot, hot chemistry. It helped that Patrick Swayze was beautiful and Jennifer Gray was cute. (Loved her Keds!) I love to watch couples dance in a jealous-kind of way because I know I am way too shy and too uncoordinated to get out there and move the way they do. And OMG – did these two have it or what? The dance lessons provided some of my favorite moments in the movie.
Something I also love love love about these two was that they never uttered the words “I love you” to one another. And they didn’t have to. It was all about action. Baby standing up against her dad. Baby learning how to dance, filling in for Penny and helping them keep their jobs. (Even when she had no idea what she was doing.) Johnny standing up to his boss. Johnny barging in at the end of the movie, taking his rightful place on the stage that last day of summer.
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The thing about the movie is that we see the couple get the “happily ever after” – happily grooving away in the center of the dance floor – and while I’d like to think they are off growing old somewhere with 2.5 kids… you are still left to question: was this only a summer romance? Or something more. (I honestly don’t think a fired employee would return to his place a work, and cause a scene quite like he did for a girl that didn’t mean that much to him.) I kind of like having that answer left to our imaginations. I think the movie ended perfectly. (Thank you for that.) Because even if it ended a few months or years later, what both of them found that summer was sure to move them in a more satisfying direction. (Hey, I’m trying to be positive. I want them together dammit!)
Me? I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of what I saw, I’m scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.
Jesse & Celine, Before Sunset
By: Red Velvet
Celine: Baby, you are gonna miss that plane.
Jesse: I know.
Before Sunset is my all-time favorite movie and its characters, Celine and Jesse, are hands down my all-time favorite couple (favorite love story, favorite everything!). You get the picture.
Celine: I believe if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.
We are first introduced to these characters in Before Sunrise. They’re both on a train from Budapest heading home - he is going to Vienna to catch a flight back to the United States and she to Paris, where she is studying at the university. Their eyes meet, he asks her to get coffee, the first of many interesting conversations begins and soon enough, he’s convinced her to get off the train with him in Vienna. They spend the next 24 hours roaming around the city and getting to know one another. Falling in love with each other. It sounds crazy but this movie captures their time together so beautifully.
How many of us have imagined a moment where you just look at someone and feel that immediate connection? I know I have (especially after watching this movie!). They don’t pretend that two strangers agreeing to spend an entire day and night together walking around a foreign city is normal. There’s awkward silences and looks, hesitations. But as the day goes on, they slowly start sharing stories about their childhood, love, relationships and just about any random thought that comes to mind. It’s all so real and magical at the same time.
Celine: I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and without making it look my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone, and being loved means so much to me. We always make fun of it and stuff. But isn’t everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?
In Before Sunset, we reunite with these characters again. It’s nine years later and while they haven’t see each other since that night in Vienna, neither have ever forgotten it. Jesse has become a best-selling author with his book, This Time, based on his night with Celine. He’s married, has a son. Celine is an advocate for the environment and is in a serious relationship. Jesse is on the last stop of his book tour in Paris and of course, Celine shows up. The next hour and a half is shot in real-time which is one of the reasons why I love the sequel more - it adds to the urgency of their time together. They’re older and more jaded but it’s clear that the connection between them still exists. And watching them open up each other again after all these years, it really makes you wonder if soulmates do exist. Because if they do, these two are it.
Celine: I guess when you’re young, you just believe there’ll be many people with whom you’ll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times.
Jesse: And you can screw it up, you know, misconnect.
Both movies end on an ambiguous note. You don’t know if they end up together or not. Jesse describes that his book is like a test and that same analogy can be applied to these movies. If you’re a romantic, you think they get back together and if you’re a cynic, you don’t. Or if you’re somewhere in the middle, you hope they do but you’re not completely sure.
I think fall into the romantic category.
(Photos courtesy of: rottentomatoes.com & themoviedb.org)
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