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Original poster

Most Couples Are Doomed

226 replies

SmidgenofaPigeon · 08/04/2021 11:02

I mean in film and TV and literature .

Often at the end of a film depicting a great love story I just think...nah....two years max.

Examples:
Rose and Jack if he hadn’t frozen to death. Would she REALLY have been content with a future cut off from society and spitting and ice-fishing her way round America? No.

Satine and Christian from Moulin Rouge. I know she’s dead (and died very beautifully and romantically from TB too) but if they’d had to leave Paris, rattling through Europe dragging a bird cage, it would be no time at all before she realised there’s no freedom in being dirt poor while Christian writes his book, she’d go back to her tried and tested ways in no time to make a few bob, he’d get jealous and she’d piss off to join a chorus line in London, not as the sparking diamond but a cubic zirconia near the back.

Film Harry and Ginny- he’d realise all those years of playing the field as the chosen one was a missed chance, and he’d move out to his own flat where he’d show off his new Nike AirMax to his bewildered children and boast about crazy nights out in the local bar. Ginny would sniff stoically in a beige trench coat and hold it together for the kids.

I’m sure there are loads more.

OP posts:
Ivebeeninlockdowntoolong · 08/04/2021 15:17

What about Mr De Winter and his second wife? She would have grown up and realised he was a selfish and self-absorbed person who did not back her up or give her any support when she had to deal with Mrs Danvers.

CloudFormations · 08/04/2021 15:19

I know you’re trying to be funny OP but that whole Harry Potter Nike AirMax made me cringe. It’s a bit try hard.

This is a mumsnet thread, not an English lit tutorial.

Mugginyouleftrightandcentre · 08/04/2021 15:23

Carrie and Charlie from Four Weddings and a Funeral - surely she was cheating on him within months of them getting together, I bet that baby might not have even been his!

It was on the other night and I had forgotten what a completely awful character she was!

HeyDemonsItsYaGirl · 08/04/2021 15:23

Romeo and Juliet aren't meant to be tragic soul mates! The tragedy isn't that they were so in love and died, it's that their silly crushes caused so much pain and death. They'd both have been "in love" with someone else within a fortnight if they hadn't died.

benorjerry · 08/04/2021 15:24

[quote CaveMum]@benorjerry (and any other P&P commentators) have you read/watched "Death Comes to Pemberley"? I watched the series on the BBC a few years ago, though haven't read the book, and thought it was a very creditable follow up.

Set 6 years after the events of P&P - Lizzie and Darcy are on slightly wobbly ground and prone to bickering and Lydia is putting on a front for her marriage knowing full well Wickham is shagging everything in sight behind her back.[/quote]
Yes, I've read a few sequels to P and P, Emma Tennant wrote a couple but I found Death COmes to Pemberley an odd diversion from PD James. In all of them Lydia and Wickham are portrayed as still together but the annoying relatives who are always cadging from their better-off friends, turning up like the proverbial bad penny!

ButIcantsitonleather · 08/04/2021 15:27

@Igotfiveonit

I know you’re trying to be funny OP but that whole Harry Potter Nike AirMax made me cringe. It’s a bit try hard.
Yeah, I reckon the OP will live... 🙄
Tinydinosaur · 08/04/2021 15:29

@Shodan

Andy and Nate (Anne Hathaway and Adrian Grenier) in The Devil Wears Prada.

Six months tops before Andy realised what an absolute chauvinist tool he was and dumped his whiny arse, before pursuing her own career on her own terms (and doing brilliantly)

Agree. He and their friends were all jealous pricks. Simon Baker any day 😋
OwlBeThere · 08/04/2021 15:31

Belle from the beauty and the beast just has Stockholm syndrome.

Bagamoyo1 · 08/04/2021 15:31

Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy are happy, albeit with some ups and downs, until he is killed.

PenguinIce · 08/04/2021 15:32

I always feel a bit sorry for Rose! She has been blamed for basically killing Jack for the last 20 odd years just because she didn’t move over and let him on the door. In reality it was probably some guy from the props department that got the wrong size door and made the whole scene totally nonsensical!

OooPourUsACupLove · 08/04/2021 15:35

@JosephineBaker

Harry and Sally and Lizzie and Darcy last forever and are happy together. Anna and Kristof are well suited.

Finn and Rapunzel will be happy because I love them and I need them to be. Plus he's the hot Disney hero, and she deserves a hottie after all she's been through.

Arial and her obtuse Prince won't be.

The Disney couples reminds me of this www.funnyordie.com/2014/2/6/17737586/disney-couples-therapy-session-one
hockeysticks89 · 08/04/2021 15:35

I thought TBBT was an awful ending - you can't be happy unless you have a baby, and Penny came round to the idea and was happy 'cos that's what women really want, secretly. Lazy, predictable writing.

Nessa and Smithy? No, he thought he could do better than her. He'd always look down on her a bit (wrongly so)

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 08/04/2021 15:38

@CloudFormations

I know you’re trying to be funny OP but that whole Harry Potter Nike AirMax made me cringe. It’s a bit try hard.

This is a mumsnet thread, not an English lit tutorial.

I didn't know what ivegot5onit was going on about but anybody who says 'it's a bit try hard', is trying far too hard.
CaveMum · 08/04/2021 15:38

@benorjerry but that's exactly how I picture them - forever flitting from house to house, sponging off friends and family and outstaying their welcome! The original CFers!

ScarfaceCwaw · 08/04/2021 15:39

Lydia and Wickham don't really even make it to the end of the book. "His regard quickly sunk into indifference... Hers lasted a little longer". But splitting up just isn't really an option and in any case Lydia's family is Wickham's meal ticket. No doubt he was putting it about but he wouldn't want an actual divorce.

Now I'm thinking about one of my favourite JA phrases: Lydia walking up to take the head of the line out of the room "with anxious parade" because she's now married.

TatianaBis · 08/04/2021 15:40

Moulin Rouge was based on La Trav which was based on the novel La Dame Aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas fils which was the true story of his relationship with Marie Duplessis.

In real life Marie was a courtesan who was sexually abused by her father as a child, who then sold her to an old man when she was about 14. She escaped to Paris and fell into prostitution as she had, literally nothing. She died of TB at the age of 23.

So no, there is other way that story could have ended.

KatharinaRosalie · 08/04/2021 15:40

Ross and Rachel. Come on, don't get off that plane!
He's horrible and you will have another misunderstanding and break up in 2 weeks.

DrSbaitso · 08/04/2021 15:40

@OwlBeThere

Belle from the beauty and the beast just has Stockholm syndrome.
Everyone says this, but she was never actually a prisoner. Except for maybe two minutes at the beginning in the tower, and possibly not even then, the Beast never locked her in or restrained her. She left the castle that very night through the unlocked front door when he frightened her in the West Wing and made an active choice to return when he was injured after fighting off the wolves. She was only ever bound by a promise that she broke the very first night (she even said "promise or no promise, I can't stay here another minute").

Live action was a bit different but I'm not counting that one because it was shite.

ScarfaceCwaw · 08/04/2021 15:41

And I can't believe I'm spending this much time defending a character I really don't give a shit about, but it seemed pretty clear to me on watching Titanic that Jack made an attempt to climb onto the door and that it's clear it would have sunk with both of them on it.

randomlyLostInWales · 08/04/2021 15:44

I think Jack and Rose would only last a few years - and less when any kids arrived - then Jack would be off on some adventure without her.

I think she lived fearlessly in his memory - finding work making most of any opportunties married lated to someone with some money more in love with her than she was back and had children as part of another big adventure.

I also thought Lizzie and Darcy would be alright - even if they grew apart and I'm not sure they would. She have children to dote on and money and social life and security and he'd have clubs and mistresses if he wanted.

Heatherjayne1972 · 08/04/2021 15:45

Nah all that ‘free spirit ‘ nonsense from jack Dawson would have worn very thin with Rose in a very short time. As soon as she had no money several kids hanging on and he put on a few pounds it would all be a bit tiresome when he. wants to move to ‘wherever next’

Besides she was really cruel to her mother. At the start of the film mum makes it clear there’s debts and their stuff will get sold Rose survived the titanic and clearly ditched her mum to a life of poverty -nasty She could have sold that diamond and given her mother a decent life

TatianaBis · 08/04/2021 15:46

I've never actually managed to watch more than the first 10 mins of Titanic. Easter Shock

Melroses · 08/04/2021 15:47

Romeo and Juliet - totally dysfunctional - would have lasted a week without the drama.

Melroses · 08/04/2021 15:48

@Melroses

Romeo and Juliet - totally dysfunctional - would have lasted a week without the drama.
(TBF they lasted about a week with the drama)
DrSbaitso · 08/04/2021 15:49

Also, Belle left the castle as soon as she was released from her agreement and there's no indication she planned to return until Gaston set out to kill Beast. She also doesn't start to change her feelings for Beast until he actually starts acting like a decent being. She doesn't in any way sympathise with him for being an arsehole and she stands up to him all the time.

If anything, it's Beast who has Lima syndrome....