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2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

The best movie about love in modern times is, unarguably, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Charlie Kaufman’s epopee to the tragedy of love. In the best performances of their careers, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet play the helpless, mismatched and yet perfect-for-each other couple that has hurt each other so much, they must resort to drastic measures to make it all go away. Their love has become so all-consuming and so destructive that actual mind-erasing procedures are the only out.

The beautiful and horrifying twist comes, of course, when one realizes that not even death (the allegory for mind-erasure, in my view) can separate us from true love, even if that love is simultaneously the most painful and destructive part of our souls. The beauty of this movie is endless, and flows from the scenes on the cracked ice, to the abandoned Montauk train tracks, to Clementine’s streaky hair, to the sinking colors of the disappearing house surrounding the stairs upon which Joel stands. The true depth of this movie is such that I’ve only been willing and able to see it once ever, and yet its music and strands remain haunting to this very day. I have never encountered a film that so accurately depicts the destruction of the spirit that is caused by all-consuming love. As with other movies, having first-hand experience with the particular narrative at issue undoubtedly creates a closer connection to the movie, but it is beautifully haunting regardless.

For Eternal Sunshine, it is clear, love is destiny and pain.

1. Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Of the literally hundreds of choices I had to complete this list, I could not settle for any movie other than the coming of age romance Splendor in the Grass. Stunningly, in the year in which she headlined the smash hit West Side Story, Natalie Wood received an Oscar nomination not for the musical, but for her role as Wilma alongside the also-young and stunning Warren Beatty, who plays Bud. Bud and Wilma are young and star-crossed, and they quickly become obsessive lovers. However, tragedy strikes when both are pulled in different directions by the vagaries and cruelties of the world they inhabit (rural America in the 1920s). Consummating their love before marriage is out of the question, and marriage before college is out of the question for Bud. Instead of consummating their love, then, the love becomes all-consuming and nearly destroys them.

Their love, of course, lasts longer than the forces that tear them asunder, but, in time, it too grows old, sours, and becomes melancholy. Indeed, it arguably does destroy them, because it destroys their ability to live happy lives. Like in real life, love gives way to complacency, emotion gives way to expediency, and recklessness gives way to practicality. The sterilization of the spirit is complete and, along the way, causes literal madness.

For Splendor in the Grass, love is the most beautiful thing in our lives, but also the most destructive.

For Splendor in the Grass, then, love is abject misery.

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