By Lottie Merchant, Second Year, English
If you’re lucky enough to be heading out on a first date at this time of year, one of the most popular past-time choices for new couples is to watch a film, a perfect way to ease the pressure and break up the small talk. In fact, you might even impress your date with your refined taste in film, or ignite the romance with a delightful rom-com. However, the success of the date entirely depends on you not killing vibe and making the right choice of film. One wrong decision and your budding relationship could be over before it even began. But never fear, Epigram is here to help by supplying you with three popular romantic films which must be avoided on your first date.
1) Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004)
Starting off strong, you may want to avoid watching the brilliant, Eternal sunshine of The Spotless Mind on a first date as it’s not exactly got that light, feel-good quality to it that you’re looking for on this occasion. In fact, I would delay watching this film with a romantic partner for a very long time, as it may just leave you sitting in reflective silence, wondering whether people ever get over their exes.
This heart-wrenching love story follows Clementine (Kate Winslet), and Joel (Jim Carrey) as they try to erase each other from their memory following a break-up. In using science fiction elements to comment on the illogical and sentimental quality to human connection and memory, Michel Gondry’s portrait of romantic love is deeply affecting. On a first date you’re hopefully at the exciting beginning of something new. Watching a couple dissect the ruins of their romance, no matter how beautiful the cinematography is, might feel slightly too existential for a first encounter.
2) La La Land (2016) (and Whiplash (2014))
La La Land is a film you should avoid in this scenario, simply because it presents us with the heart-wrenching trope of the-one-that-got-away. Now this is precisely who we should not be thinking about on our first date with someone new, so this film must be written off as an option, immediately.
La La Land might seem like a safe bet, its colourful, full of show stopping musical numbers, but it really is deceptively bittersweet. Although it’s about falling in love, it is also about ambition pulling two people apart. This theme is also explored in Chazelle’s earlier work Whiplash (2014); another film you should avoid on a first date considering the scene where Andrew (Miles Teller) breaks up with his girlfriend. In this painfully awkward dinner scene, Andrew tells his girlfriend (Nicole) that being with her will get in the way of his greatness (his musical career), and she’ll resent him when he inevitably neglects her. In both Whiplash and La La Land Chazelle foregrounds a mutually exclusive binary between romantic love and ambition. Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) don’t have a dramatic breakup scene like Andrew and Nicole, but the underlying message is similar, greatness demands sacrifice, and for Chazelle, that sacrifice is love.
The ending of La La Land isn’t exactly the sweeping, ride-off-into the sunset fantasy you might be looking for, so if you’re a big Chazelle fan, maybe hold off on these two films until you’re secure enough to debate whether chasing your dreams is worth heartbreak.
3) 500 Days of Summer (Marc Webb 2009)
Marc Webb’s 2009 film starring Zoey Deschanel as Summer and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom is a big no-go for the beginning of relationships. Despite its quirky, indie-romantic exterior, it’s quite possibly the worst choice on this list.
The film follows Tom and his infatuation for Summer. Tom believes he’s in a sweeping love story. Summer doesn’t. We watch as a relationship crumbles because two people want fundamentally different things. The film is almost a warning against romantic idealisation of people with the theme of expectation versus reality actualised in the split screen sequence wherein we see Tom’s romanticisation of the scene and then what really happens.
500 Days of Summer is a clever deconstruction of the romance genre, and it definitely sparks an interesting conversation surrounding who was in the right and who was in the wrong (Tom) in their relationship. But maybe just not for the first date!
Beatrix Gazzard
Charles Hubbard
Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other bad choices of romance films for the first date. Some examples include, Past Lives (2024) as it, again, presents us with ‘the one that got away’; Blue Valentine (2010), also, because of its raw depiction of love falling apart; and last of all, the film which should never, ever under any circumstances be watched on a first date: Requiem for a Dream (2000). Seriously.
Featured Image: Unsplash
Have you ever made a bad choice for a first date film?
