Some relationships were just meant to be. Films often portray the heartwarming stories between two characters that are so made for each other that we can’t imagine a universe where they’re not together. Nonetheless, this feel-good formula has extended so much that by now many of us have gotten fed-up with the whole perfect relationship ideal. The truth is that, in the real world, the cases when people are destined to be are not as common as what movies represent. We constantly strive to stay in relationships where the odds are totally against us.
Therefore, nothing compares to watching a film where the protagonists are in such twisted relationship schemes that we can just rejoice with the hand we’ve been dealt. We feel better about our complicated love lives by watching those that are absolutely messed up. Because the truth is that it feels damn good.
Her (2013), Spike Jonze
No matter how sexy a voice happens to be and how much we believe a computer can reciprocate our feelings, there’s no way that falling for an operating system, as person-like as it seems to be, is something meant to last. Even though Theodore’s love for Samantha was real, it’s a romance way too odd to make any kind of sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4
Wings of Desire (1987), Wim Wenders
Is there a way through which an angel can fall for a person? Through Wenders’ first film from his Berlin angels’ duology, he tells the brilliant story of Damiel, a guardian angel from Berlin who envies the life of ordinary people after he’s swept off his feet by a young and lonely trapeze artist. Yet, is there a possibility for two very different souls to have a chance of being with each other?
The Skin I Live In (2011), Pedro Almodóvar
Although explaining the true nature of Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) and Vera Cruz’s (Elena Anaya) relationship would spoil one of the most mind-bending plot twists in the movie, let’s just say that living with a psychopathic surgeon who wants to use you as a guinea pig for his experiments is not exactly the way to nurture the romance of a lifetime.
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) (1972), Woody Allen
In the second fragment of this bizarre Woody Allen movie, there’s a certain love triangle between a patient, a goat, and a doctor interpreted by Gene Wilder. Isn’t that a hilarious recipe for desire?
Max Mon Amour (1986), Nagisa Oshima
This Japanese cult director had a knack for capturing strange, bizarre relationships on film. In the eighties, he directed the groundbreaking In the Realm of the Senses, an erotic film that tells the strange affair between a wealthy hotel owner and a geisha who engage in one of the strangest affairs ever caught on film. In the case of Max Mon Amour, he takes things even further, capturing the weird relationship between a married French woman (Charlotte Rampling) and a chimpanzee she steals from the zoo to make it her lover.
Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock
Albeit Hitchcock’s film is mostly remembered as a cringe-worthy thriller more than anything else, it portrays —hands down— an affair so doomed to failure than we can’t even utter how gruesome it is. Norman Bates’ Oedipus complex is nasty and shrilling as it is, and realizing how the whole maniacal scheme works will only make the viewer’s stomach churn in disgust.
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6 Films Of Perfectly Imperfect Loves That Will Soften The Hardest Of Cynics
Top 10 Movies You Need To See When Your Heart’s Been Broken
