It's not often that something can hit me emotionally for longer than five minutes. The last time I was conscious and cried? Probably something involving girls. Probably a break up or a fight or something. It was long enough ago I can't remember specifically. And it's ever rarer for me to cry in movies. I rarely emotionally connect with films to the level that I feel the urge to cry.The number one movie I thought I was about to die from how much I wanted to cry? Whale Rider. Near the end, Paikea gets on stage to do a speech dedicated to her grandfather. He doesn't show up and she's trying to fight back tears as she does the piece. I haven't rewatched Whale Rider because I don't want to ruin the memory. I can't recall who I watched the movie with but I was literally bawling during the end. Shamelessly and uncontrollably. Before Whale Rider, I had no idea I could feel this way in movies.
After that, there's been a few movies that have hit me in similar ways but none that have actually absolutely slayed me. I think I got better at holding it in. Reach for the popcorn, take big sips of the Icee. For example, Finding Neverland was another top crying movie for me but I didn't actually cry, I was just like...teary. Weepy maybe. But inside I was the Great Lakes. After tonight, make some room and vault The Time Traveler's Wife up on the list. Hello Niagara!
I've pretty much narrowed down what makes me cry in movies. When a character is interacting with a parent who is either dead, dying, or about to die. Well, that's redundant. Dead or dying, I guess. But not just anything makes me turn on the waterworks. At the end of The Family Stone, there's sort of a sudden death but that didn't do anything for me. I wasn't emotionally attached to the movie in any way. Parental death alone doesn't do a thing. I need to be led up to it, like a horse to water.
So in Time Traveler's Wife the movie, when adult Henry is on the subway talking to his mother (who died in a car accident that coincided with the first time he time traveled), it was killer because it'd be percolating for awhile. I just sat there hoping the scene would end, but also hoping it wouldn't end. Like whoa.
The whole reason I love the story of Time Traveler's Wife so much is that it's about constant loss and longing. I can't decide if I feel more closely attuned to Clare or Henry's dilemma but the idea that two people are constantly trying to reach out for each other but can never hold on long enough, that's just terrible. And for Henry, he continually relives events. His mother's death. His death. Fights with Clare. Everything. He's a man on the move and mostly unwillingly.
But then, it might be worse for Clare. She never knows when Henry will be gone. He just *poof* disappears. And then she waits. For years at a time. And on top of that she really had no choice in deciding that this would be her life. Henry met her when she was only six. She had no chance to fall in love with anyone else. It was accidentally designed fate. She had free will to fall in love but also a heavy dose of predestination. Plus having Henry know everything that's going to happen in the future must be infuriating.
Sigh, it's so romantic, their longing and losing, their "You're the only one for me (even if you're never around)" commitment.
Awhile ago, I was talking to someone about losing a parent and if he said that he looked forward to dreaming so that he could see them again. I told him that's exactly how I felt. I unconsciously wake up crying sometimes and I won't even remember what happened but I've figured out that it's because in my dreams I've seen my dad and somewhere in there, I realized it wasn't real. So that's how I feel emotionally connected to Henry watching his past. Like he gets to go around and see things again, and you would think that's comforting, but at the same time, there's no future in it, you know?
I can't even articulate exactly what makes this book/movie affect me like this. I wish I could, and I think I'll have to try again sometime. But for now it's just interesting for me to get so emotionally wrecked post-watching/reading it. I don't feel this way often and I almost want to wallow in it and extend it.
But you know, the Real Housewives of Atlanta is on in the background. So that kind of kills the mood. Back to non-emotion land!
