“She couldn’t help feeling she’d sold her soul to the devil, and she hoped she didn’t live to regret it”

On the AFI’s list of the top one hundred romantic movies made by the United States the twenty-first entry is Pretty Woman, the much-adored fairytale starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere as prostitute and man who buys prostitute, respectively. Of the one hundred films there are only two which tell of the world’s oldest profession and Breakfast at Tiffany’s is tenuously the other. There are as many hooker-themed films as ghost love stories then, making spirits and prostitutes equally appealing to cinema audiences. Pretty Woman sidesteps social or moral issues by presenting their adorable street-walker as a likeable, naïve waif on her very first day in her new occupation, who agrees to the sleazy corporate raider’s unconventional request because he offers a good deal of money and he’s charming Richard Gere. From there the film descends into heavy-handed visual metaphors, feel-good triumph over adversity and scenes borrowed from My Fair Lady of the Night. From a budget of $14 million the movie grossed over $450 million, made superficiality cool and became a favourite among female audiences despite numerous actors turning down the Vivien role, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Daryl Hannah and Jennifer Jason Leigh, because they found the script degrading to women.

The power of the concept remains alive and lucrative for the authors of Mills & Boon, as we again have had to read with The Millionaire’s Indecent Proposal. While Hollywood argues that hookers-with-hearts-of-gold can be reasoned into non-hookers-with-hearts-of-gold with enough money, Harlequin and her sister publishers make a bolder claim. With enough money women can not only be prostituted, but then civilized and brought back into society as submissive wife, which would have been a character arc too far for even Audrey Hepburn. Stacy Reeves begins chapter four by accepting her payment, albeit with a few conditions that don’t seem important, and ends the chapter accepting her first orgasm courtesy of Franco’s masculinity. Life is good for Stacy and until we read on so it shall remain. Meanwhile, here at Bewildered Heart there is the bountiful topic of Solicititilation to discuss, and why the subgenre can be allowed to exist when it appears to be offensive to women, prostitutes and Mediterranean tycoons.

Mating interests strategised over years of evolution have brought us to the point in time where wealth is a desirable quality in a partner, and this dates back to the beginning of humankind, to the caveman with the largest rock, through the prosperous heroes found in respected romantic fiction, by Jane Austen and all those Bronte’s, to the disrespected annals of Harlequin Presents a poorly-written retreads of the classics. Women want to have babies, and in order to avoid self-imposed moral stigma of having many babies with many different fathers they seek one father, wed in holy matrimony where anything goes, to beget the many babies which will bring them a life purpose and contentment. A mother’s love is never enough, however, and therefore in order for these babies to be provided for and raised healthy, the potential father must have a fortune and an athletic body of rippling muscles and few venereal diseases. Solicititilation plays directly into these basic feminine desires, as the man in question must have much money to squander and be impossibly handsome. The narrative devices to bring him from man willing to buy women to a man who doesn’t proposition women with cash motivations is plenty to base an arc on.

Romantic heroes unfailingly begin their novels conceited and arrogant, an attitude all affluent, gorgeous men are born with and retain until a delicate female is able to unburden them of their personal traits, thus rendering them marriage material. Within the context of the genre the structure works remarkably thoroughly. All Mills & Boon men are created in their author's idealised vision of a desirable male, and usually separated by non-heroic men by thickness of hair. Once you have your perfect man, however, described in magnificent detail, their only faults can come from within. Invariably they shall be wealthy, glamorous, worldly, respected, powerful and intelligent, but with these material and emotional virtues comes an off-putting self-satisfaction, as if they believe that through their irresistible beauty, charm and infinite funds they are able to claim whatever they please.

For juxtaposition, the virginal poor yin to the divorced rich yang, our writer wisely chooses a heroine who has paid the obvious price for not being a man, and that price is financial. Only within this set-up is there potential for us, the gentle reader, to credibly accept Stacy agreeing to sell her body for €1,000,000 to Franco Constantine, devious chocolatier. There are few secrets to the appeal of the archetypal romantic plot, where an innocent gamine in a mysterious land meets an enigmatic, guarded land-owner, and although initially distrustful of his arrogant nature, discovers his sensitive side and brings out the best in him with selfless loving. However, why this has regressed to Solicititilation is somewhat bewildering, as if the progression of the characters involve exacerbating their faults by pushing money to the forefront of the tension.

Why do romance fiction authors feel compelled to tell such tales, as there is no narrative-incentive to creating a dilemma for a heroine and then spending the majority of the novel defending the characters and explaining how none of this is how it seems? Yes, Stacy Reeves has sold her body for money to a man she is afraid of because of deep-rooted, unresolved issues with her father, but she needs the money for noble reasons, will pay tax on it and refuses additional gifts. Also, did you read the description of Franco Constantine? He is utterly delectable and has access to free chocolate. Stacy would have slept with him for free, so hold those degrading accusations for the next heroine who sells her body to a billionaire. Stacy is unlike those sluts, because Stacy is modest and doesn’t want money, only what she will be able to spend it on. Furthermore, Franco is European and cynical because his ex-wife had an abortion without his knowledge and his father is frittering away his money on gold-diggers, so Franco is hardened by experience and just needs to meet a woman from the USA to teach him that it is only non-US citizens who are whores. Now, with that in mind the whole prostitution dilemma sounds suitably agreeable and beneficial to all parties.

Author Emilie Rose may have wished to exhibit the destructive effect Stacy's complicity has on her soul, but instead she weakly trots out guilt-ridden asides through an interior monologue, with Stacy ashamed of Franco's attention and her enjoyment of her newfound sexuality. She considers the money on occasion, but is thankful for the life the financial backing will afford her. We can only assume this rationalisation and watering-down of prostitution stems from the novelist's own neuroses about writing chauvinistic and misanthropic stories and then selling them to women for payment from their arrogant, controlling publisher, with offices in London, Paris and New York and a heady history of success and sexual experience. Authors tremble at the knees in the presence of Mills & Boon and are happy to give up their more dignified aspirations of writing romances in the style of their icons and settling for making an under-whelming living as sell-outs, happy to abandon love in poverty for a lucrative imitation of the real thing.

“Maybe you're only alloted a certain amount of tears per man and I've used mine up”

Anyone who enjoys cinema and female companionship will be disappointed to learn that the column Girls on Film is merely a bunch of essays by women on the topic of movies. False advertising on the internet, who knew that occurred? Well, you won't find any of that on Bewildered Heart, where we're true to our original goal, posting photographs of Hugh Jackman in embarrassing poses. No one is tricked onto this blog, no one is invited either, it seems. The point is, please click on the adverts.

Girls on Film is one of the more vocal exponents on the decline of romantic comedies, a subject Bewildered Heart is also dedicated to uncovering. From the AFI list of the hundred greatest romantic films, only a handful are comedies, and the finest of those include The Princess Bride, The Goodbye Girl, Harold and Maude, The Lady Eve and Casablanca. Of those there aren't many traditional romcoms, as we've grown to expect them. Possibly the reason for this is that the AFI is solely interested in great movies, and The Way We Were, whereas we have grown to expect romantic comedies to be as terrible as The Way We Were. After all, when Ernst Lubitsch died William Wyler sensed the end was near, and Hollywood never replaced the likes of he or Preston Sturges. Girls on Film have decided that this issue is worth filling their essay quota on, and so over at their Moviefone website you can read what's wrong with Hollywood and more importantly what's wrong with you, the audience, who lap this toilet water up. Monika Bartyzel makes numerous mentions to The Bechdel Rule, an idea taken from a twenty-something year old comic strip where a character asserts she will only see a film if it adheres to three strict rules. 'One, there are two women who Two, talk to each other about Three, something other than men.'

Because of this rule, the strip argues, the only film that woman has seen is Alien, where two lady characters speak of the phallic metaphor chasing them down narrow corridors. Now, perhaps it is misguided to blame Hollywood for seeing females as a niche audience with limited interests, as critics contend. Women make up the majority of the population, but not the cinema-going public. Is this because there are no films that specifically appeal to women? After all, Sex and the City and its sequel made hundreds of millions of dollars. Sex and the City has become a hugely successful franchise, with a television series, two films, a line of cocktails and it is likely they have a cut of the shoe market, to boot. What's curious about its success, however, is that the films are horrible, insensitive, awful and sexist. Female audiences forgive this, mind, either because they're so starved for representation they'll take what they can get, or women are stupid and have no self-respect or taste, something they probably learned from Sex and the City.

Now, it is perhaps worth bearing in mind that while women are stupid, the wider point is that people are stupid and women are people. Furthermore, many of these same women are aware that Sex and the City 2 is an abysmal, xenophobic and oddly misogynistic movie, but they enjoyed it anyhow. So Girls on Film, what the hell? 'While I can't fathom forgiving all of the flaws of SatC on the big screen, forgiveness is an essential part of the experience for any moviegoer eager to see real-life women. There are, quite simply, too few films that are interested in reaching beyond the typical stereotypes.' Huh. Women call it SatC. Interesting. 'Studios don't see this success as an example of moviegoers wanting more diverse and awesome women on the big screen, or more women in general. They see it as a simple equation: Romance + sexy women + comedy = Goldmine. Female friends + fashion + money = Goldmine. Women obsessed with men = Goldmine.' She misused the word awesome, but for discerning film-goers desperate for the beauty to be put back into romcoms it makes for a worrying trend. Unless the studios are onto something, which they are, because that equation makes a lot of sense. If we continue down this decline then eventually romantic comedies will be in as bad shape as most other Hollywood genres. Skyline was a rubbish sci-fi alien invasion film and made no money. If the next rubbish alien invasion film also makes no money will Hollywood listen and go back to the safe-haven of remaking classic alien invasion films?

Moviefone points its angry finger at SatC, SatC2, Mamma Mia and Valentine's Day as a sign of this threat to quality. These films are critically-ravaged, yet each made a lot of money. Is this because women lack representation on screen but forgive the movie's faults because it has been made with them in mind? Do they blindly support 'female' films even when they're insulting to women? This is a flawed argument, of course, because Sex and the City had a loyal built-in fanbase, Mamma Mia had previously been a huge success on stage and Valentine's Day had a lucrative history as a day long before it cashed in as a film. It is akin to arguing that just because Spiderman 3 made a fortune at the box office teenage boys will pay for abysmal superhero films just to see Spiderman at the cinema. Well, everyone rightly hated Spiderman 3 and despite its profits Hollywood listened, going to great lengths to trick the audience into watching another one. Surely nobody wants to make atrocious films. None of the people involved in Valentine's Day intended it to be that bad. Yes, the female characters are made up of, 'the sweet-as-pie grade school teacher, the airhead blonde high schooler, the perpetually single girl who wallows in candy and panic attacks, the rich wife who tries to ignore her husband's infidelity,' but the men didn't come off any better. There was a professional football player who turns out to be gay, a smarmy doctor cheating on his wife and an Ashton Kutcher. It isn't a matter of Hollywood folk lazily trading on stereotypes, but just a bunch of hacks doing the best they could.

The New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis says different. Asked why romantic comedies are in such straits, she helpfully pointed out that, 'One, the people making them have no fucking taste, two, they're morons, three, they're insulting panderers who think they're making movies for the great unwashed and that's what they want.' Clearly this can't be correct because that would mean a Hollywood producer would have to be an insultingly pandering moron with no taste and an arrogant, superior attitude to the public. Maybe Dargis means filmmakers can be one of the three options. Choose carefully, Hollywood.

'So where's the line between fighting for diverse representations, feeling anger over stereotypical crap, rebelling against bubbleheaded fluffdom, and being a supporter of female achievement?' asks Monika Bartyzel. 'That's not something I can quite figure out yet.' Well, Monika, you're lucky there's a big strong man around to help you answer that. After this Bewildered Heart will take care of that spider. Dargis makes an obvious point when she refuses to judge female-directed films differently from male-directed ones, even though it begs the question as to what difference it makes to have a female director. A female writer and director with a female cast telling stories about women for female audiences seems to compartmentalise women as not only niche audiences, but niche filmmakers too. Why would you celebrate a film being made, or being seen by a lot of people just because it was made by women? It's a shallow victory that limits the threshold of potential achievement. Don't check the credits to see who wrote and directed the film, just rebel against stereotypes and bubbleheaded fluffdom as much as others will rebel against journalists making up words.

"I'm very grateful she's a woman, and so easy to forget!"

The follower of Bewildered Heart must be curious as to how the attempt to watch every romance movie on the list of American Film Institute's 100 Years 100 Passions Top 100 Most Romantic Movies Ever Made in these United States has been going. Though the comment boards have been typically silent on the matter, we can only assume readers have been asking incessantly, and so as we near December and the beginning of the month rightfully set aside for Christmas movies and Christmas-themed Mills & Boon's, it is with great delight and much relief that we can announce it is almost over. Many of the films featured are much admired by anonymous internet critics able to stomach such things as swooning, bursting into song and Barbara Streisand. However, Bewildered Heart is not such a blog, and as we have recently had to endure The Way We Were and Funny Lady it is with thankfulness that we note the end has arrived.

There was a time when Audrey Hepburn existed and ran around on cinema screens in wonderful clothes pretending to fall in love with actors who were much too old for her. Those lean years are a glory to look back upon. Naturally, many of those films don't hold up today and yet five of her films feature on the AFI's most romantic films list. Her total of five is bettered only by two stars, Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Audrey Hepburn's career began, in earnest, with Roman Holiday, where she was paired opposite Gregory Peck's American journalist, playing an escaped princess shirking her regal responsibilities to have a free-spirited jaunt around Rome and a hair-cut. Tsk, another journalist! Of course Roman Holiday is a mighty fine film, one of the most romantic of all time, according to the AFI, with two strong central performances and a handful of inspiring set-pieces in a well-used location. Tellingly it also has a bittersweet ending because journalists are not deserving of happy endings as they are journalists. To say bittersweet is misleading, mind. The journalist is miserable and an Audrey Hepburn character remains single

A year later and there came Sabrina Fair, an awkward film and only the 54th most romantic of all time, but Audrey manages to imbue a dignified credibility into her supposed idolization of William Holden, a romance given further creditability by the offscreen romance between the pair. With all this hard work done, however, Billy Wilder goes and squanders it by having her instead fall for Humphrey Bogart, who looks as uncomfortable as someone can when wearing trousers pulled up past the belly button. Ten years after Sabrina, Hepburn and Holden would appear together once again in Paris When it Sizzles, but Audrey couldn't carry the effect of Sabrina into this new film. Her marriage to Mel Ferrer and Holden's deteriorating health due to his alcoholism made for a problematic set and despite a cameo from Marlene Dietrich and a tongue-in-cheek performance from the late Tony Curtis Paris When it Sizzles stands up today as only a fitfully amusing comedy, thanks largely to a tongue-in-cheek performance from Tony Curtis, and, of course, Audrey Hepburn being adorable.

Love in the Afternoon works whenever Gary Cooper is offscreen, but these sequences are few and far between. Nothing against Gary Cooper, though. He's just Gary Cooper. When Audrey says he looks like a cowboy this ends up as perceptive criticism rather than referential in-joke. Billy Wilder intended Love in the Afternoon to be a tribute to his mentor, Ernst Lubitsch, but Lubitsch never miscast like this, beyond putting Melvyn Douglas in anything (Look at his moustache, it's smug). May to December romances aren't fit for stories of eternal love. When the narration tells us the lovers were later married we say, Sure, and roll our eyes. Unlike some critics whose dislike of Billy Wilder means they won't find their names printed here, no casual human being should feel anything but great affection towards Billy Wilder, but his romantic comedies work best when shot through with his patented cynicism for mankind. The Apartment, Number 62, is a beautiful and touching romance, but his frothier offerings such as Irma La Douce pale in comparison to his best work. Sadly, Sabrina and Love in the Afternoon are among his weaker films, although it is fair to say that Audrey has never looked as gorgeous as she did in these movies.

Now Funny Face was lovely, although it's hard to get over Fred Astaire telling Audrey Hepburn that she isn't conventionally beautiful, but he loves her anyway. She should have slapped him for that comment or offered him a mirror, but it is infuriating whenever an Audrey Hepburn character appears on screen and is not followed by a horde of men and women carrying bunches of flowers. One above The Apartment comes Breakfast at Tiffany's and here's a perfectly acceptable film with a leading man close to Audrey's age. Audrey is cast against type, in a role brimming with self-confidence, far from the shy ingénue of her other characters. Breakfast at Tiffany's is her most iconic role and her most believable romantic-comedy romance.

My Fair Lady is over-long, weighing in at almost three hours, which is a slog for even a viewer who can tolerate musicals. Hepburn is miscast and ten years too old for the role. Still, there are a handful of likeable songs and pleasant sequences, but George Cukor shoots the film as a theatrical production, merely transporting the play to the screen without the benefits of the adopted medium. Furthermore and most importantly, perhaps, My Fair Lady isn't a love story despite the AFI declaring it the 14th most romantic American production ever. Oh, Film Institute, where is the romance? From the young man when he sings the song of stalking, or are we led to believe Audrey and Rex Harrison fall for each other, in an almost as credible a coupling as Rex and Gene Tierney, in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Number 73? After all, admitting you've grown to tolerate someone is hardly the fourteenth most romantic gesture open to a man. The ending is subtle, to the point of ambiguity, but we assume Eliza and Henry marry and live as happily as the viewer can imagine them living, yet if there is an implied relationship in My Fair Lady the audience has the right to refuse to acknowledge it. This is a satisfactory compromise, for having seen Audrey pretend to love Bogie, Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, William Holden and Cary Grant it is difficult to manage Rex Harrison to boot.

This leaves us with her Stanley Donen double bill, of Charade and Two for the Road. As Charade doesn't figure on the 100 Passions list, we can quickly skip over it. Suffice to say, Charade is a fine thriller and Cary Grant takes a shower with his clothes on, which is easily more romantic than admitting you've grown accustomed to a lady's presence. Two For the Road, meanwhile, features at Number 57, and earns its place as a surprisingly tender, painful and insightful observation of a marriage, and pairs Hepburn with Albert Finney, a man seven years her junior, a nice change for Audrey, the saucy minx. Two For the Road is smartly-written (by Frederic Raphael) and cleverly edited to show a relationship in its beginning, its honeymoon stage and as it breaks down. The same year Audrey Hepburn was impressive in Wait Until Dark even though the story around her performance made no sense at all, and beyond that there were only a handful of films she saw fit to grace. Nevertheless, sixteen films in fourteen years and five among the most romantic of all American time is a remarkable achievement. She has been a rare bright spot in this debauched month of romance movie-watching and she should always be remembered as the perfect anecdote to sitting through a Barbara Streisand movie.

“Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories”

Halfway through Sleepless in Seattle, two women complain of the lack of romance in their lives while they watch Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr fall for each other in a version of An Affair to Remember edited to appropriately incorporate the conversations of watching love-starved women. The blonde love-starved woman watching is played by Meg Ryan and she begins the scene with an assured opinion that those were the days when people knew how to be in love. However many years it has been since and An Affair to Remember remains fondly regarded. So much so the AFI named it as the fifth most romantic film of all time, bettered only by Roman Holiday, West Side Story, Gone with the Wind and Casablanca, thus making An Affair to Remember the most romantic film to have a happy ending. Clearly, the American Film Institute believes the only way to prove true love is to give it up.

But really, American Film Institute? West Side Story and Gone with the Wind? The unsightly appearance of Shakespeare in Love at Number 50 suggests they had trouble finishing the list. And then there's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at 89? Did they even watch that? Still, Mills & Boon must have been delighted to see a Sheik make a showing. Please study this countdown in your own time because we will no doubt return to it shortly, once every title included has been watched.

For now our attention returns to Cary Grant, as it always seems to on wintry nights. For those not aware of An Affair to Remember, please allow Rita Wilson to ruin it for you. The film is actually a scene-by-scene remake of Love Affair, shot by the same director and using the same script. Cary Grant's accent takes on the role of a playboy, heading to the United States to meet up with his fiancée. On the boat he meets Terry, played by Deborah Kerr, and despite all odds, and rather at the story's insistence, they develop feelings for one another. Faced with the physical improbability of a life together, they agree to reconvene at the top of the Empire State Building six months henceforth, by which time both will have ended their relationships and he will have established himself as a professional painter. Plans naturally go awry and the audience must instead settle for forty five minutes of stubborn pride and plot machinations before the big scene in Terry's bright apartment.

Someone in Hollywood clearly realised that while we were tempted with the allure of a big romantic showdown atop the Empire State Building the potential went unsatisfied, and so in 1993 the forty-fifth most romantic feature-length English language movie with significant creative and/or financial production elements from the United States whose "passion" has enriched America’s film and cultural heritage while continuing to inspire contemporary artists and audiences was released. Jeff Arch had the idea and he called it Sleepless in Seattle. Nora Ephron and David S. Ward (him of The Sting fame, which is romantic in a different way) then worked on the script and Ephron, who had previously written When Harry Met Sally..., directed, even cajoling Rob Reiner into a cameo. All that technical nonsense is beside the point, however, as Sleepless in Seattle is a love story to define the age we live in, and more than makes up for the insipid drivel of You've Got Mail, which actually had more to do with the age we live in.

Recently reviewing Sleepless... for the eighth or ninth time Bewildered Heart noticed many a thing many viewers would have noticed almost immediately. First off, Meg Ryan's character is a journalist. How can she find love when it has already been made expressively clear that journalists do not have souls? Secondly, the first ten minutes of the story are redundant. The opening speech at the funeral, an odd ghostly fantasy and some scenes showing Sam at work are entirely unnecessary, as all this information is later incorporated into the film's inciting incident, son Jonah's call to The Frasier Crane Show and the convenience of Annie's listening in. It's curious to note that the main events in Sleepless in Seattle take place at major holidays. We begin at Thanksgiving, swiftly move onto Christmas and then briefly take in New Year's. When Annie and Sam glimpse sight of each other for the first time, there is a sign behind Annie's head saying “Closed For Labor and Memorial Day”. This may be considered a continuation of theme, but it turns out those days take place months later in the year. Things get back on track by the end, though, as the final scene plays out on St. Valentine's Day. It's more coincidental than curious, isn't it?

The set-up would suggest Sleepless in Seattle is Sam's story, but a sudden switch in plotting indicates Annie Reed is our protagonist. This is incorrect. The main character is Jonah, he is the driving force of the story and film's emotional centre, thus making Sleepless in Seattle a fuzzy and narratively misguided version of The Parent Trap, with Rosie O'Donnell taking the place of Precocious Twin #2, a role she was born to play. Yet Sleepless in Seattle is a homage to a remake. An Affair to Remember is referenced and quoted throughout. Despite having few similarities with the film, Sleepless... is inspired by the message of the original film and ends up not being a love story, but rather a nostalgic fairytale concerning the importance of believing in fate, following signs, not settling and knowing that true love is out there and will find you, thanks to a series of contrivances brought about by supporting characters.

An Affair to Remember contains a dramatic love story unfolding for the audience to become captivated by, with Grant and Kerr separated by will and misfortune. We watch because we know they belong together, we have been told they do through their scenes on the boat, despite those scenes being largely underwhelming displays of face-touching. Sleepless in Seattle has, at its heart, a sense of tension, as the viewer believes in something the leads do not. We believe they belong together, through a cosmic twist of fate, and the journey we go on stems from watching Ryan and Hanks catch on to what we have known all along. An Affair to Remember becomes infinitely more romantic, therefore, as the audience is allowed to take the terrifying leap into the unknown alongside the characters. We are lost, however, shortly thereafter, when circumstances over-take destiny and we are placed precariously back in our chairs, to see the resolution of how rather than if. Nora Ephron does not indulge the will-they-won't-they dilemma, withholding the relationship shenanigans and concentrating on the build up to the life-changing meeting. We leave the Empire State Building in safe knowledge this new family will at last find happiness.

The American Film Institute has strict guidelines for their potential entrants, one of which calls for 'a romantic bond between two characters, whose actions and/or intentions provide the heart of the film’s narrative.' Sleepless in Seattle creeps in barely, as no romantic bond is forged between the leads. Their potential boundless love belongs in the mind of the viewer. Sam only goes to New York to rescue his son, otherwise he'd have run off with the woman with the hyena laugh and gotten laid. His son only ran away to force his dad to go somewhere against his will. Annie only knows who Sam is through an invasion of his privacy. This is no film to define ones moral code by.

The Rosie O'Donnell character that Rosie O'Donnell always plays says, 'Men never get [An Affair to Remember].' The Rosie O'Donnell character maybe right, if we assume that the AFI poll was conducted solely by women. Nevertheless, An Affair to Remember is a pleasant enough way to while away one hundred and seventeen minutes, yet this can hardly be the fifth greatest example of romance in film history, discounting all foreign attempts. Their love isn't credible excepting the striking show of devotion the story culminates in. Perhaps that was enough. Take this essay as an example, a stirring and perceptive and challenging ending would have more than compensated for the superficial insights that had gone before it.