Films For the Perfect Anti-Valentine Party
Movies That Will Make You Prefer Singlehood
Being single on Valentine's Day can often be a perfect recipe for depression. While some may feel that it is better to have loved and lost, than to have ever loved at all, others may feel that this specific holiday rubs salt in the wound of the newly single.
Therefore, take heart (pun very much intended, cheer up folks!): there are many ways to get over heartache, or at least enjoy the reality of singlehood. It could be worse: you may have paired yourself up with a Glenn Close-esque Bunny Boiler (see below), or an abusive Stanley Kowalski type.
Host an Anti-Valentine Film Party
Gather your single friends around, and put a moratorium on beer-crying. Instead, watch a murderous or destructive love tale. This should persuade the single person to enjoy their new social status, at least for the time being. After all, sometimes it's better to be alone, than be paired with someone unhappily.
Make the event BYOB, ensuring each partygoer is enjoying his fine drink of choice. Just make sure you have plenty of comfort foods. It doesn't even have to be pretty or expensive. Beer, pizza and a film about a failed relationship, will have you and your friends be glad yo have each other.
Films to Make You Glad You're Single
All parties need some form of entertainment, and there's nothing more depressing than a collection of lonely hearts whining about their condition. Play a film to distract the newly brokenhearted, or the terminally single from repeating yet another tale of woe.
Bad romances all have some theme in common. Get a feel for your crowd, and play a film that mirrors a friend's breakup, or just pick a film that makes you feel blessed not to be married to a psychopath.
Here are a handful of ideas for themes that are ideal for bitter and/or single folk. Viewers should just be happy their relationship is nowhere as dysfunctional as the following on-screen pairings...
Murderous Love Films Featuring Stalkers
- Play Misty For Me: One of the earlier films to feature a stalker.
- Fatal Attraction: The one to compare against all others, Glenn Close in a movie that terrified all men in the world, in the late Eighties. This film popularized the aforementioned term "bunny boiler".
- The Crush: Alicia Silverstone in an early role, about a teen girl who never learned the word "no."
Destructive Romances
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? : Be glad you're not married to neither Martha or Honey. Nobody should be married to a verbally abusive, blowsy alcoholic, or a passive agressive daddy's girl.
- Niagara: Sure, sure, Marilyn Monroe is a bombshell as Rose Loomis. Problem is, she's also off her rocker. Doesn't bachelorhood sound good right about now?
Painful Romances on Celluloid (AKA Better Them Than You)
- Revenge (1990): Somewhat forgettable thriller with Kevin Costner and Madeline Stowe. Remember that commandment "That shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife?" Old Kevin doesn't seem to have read that part...
- Jane Eyre: Though remade several times, look for the 1944 version starring Orson Welles. A classic rendition of Charlotte Brontë's titular novel; sure, broody, pouty Edward Rochester (Welles) is appealing to Jane (Joan Fontaine), but... locking your wife in the attic? Has a mistress, too? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Not sexy at all.
Which brings us to this next category...
Abusive Love in Film
- What's Love Got to Do With It: One of the better biographical films of the 1990s in this writer's opinion, it's the story of Ike and Tina Turner's abusive relationship, and ultimately Tina's rise to fame on her own terms. An empowering film for anyone who's ever been physically or emotionally abused, and who needs support or inspiration to change their lives.
- A Streetcar Named Desire: Marlon Brando, wearing the quintessential wife-beater shirt, as Stanley Kowalski. The iconic image of Brando in his undershirt, screaming out "Hey, Stella!" is synonymous with raw passion. Stanley is also the image of a sexy, albeit gold-digging, abusive, untrustworthy hunk. A classic for the ages.
Watching a film where people are hurting worse than the audience, might seem like an exercise in schadenfreude. Yet if the urge to cry in one's beer is still present after watching any or several of the above suggested titles, then remember this: The glass can always be seen as half-full: sometimes it's better to be alone, than in a bad relationship.
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