Authors and consultants Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks (Conscious Loving, Attracting Genuine Love, Five Wishes, and The Corporate Mystic) teach seminars in conscious relationships and “bodymind vibrance.” They have complied a list of their top relationship movies, movies that combine “artistic merit with the ability of the movie to shed light on the inner workings of relationships and how to maximize their potential. In addition, all the movies we selected share that elusive quality known as heart.” 
All of the films on their list are worth watching and discussing. Here’s their list, with my comments. Their discussion appears in two parts on their Huffington Post column. Here are the first five:
1. Moonstruck This is one of the most romantic movies ever made. The Henricks picked it for Nicolas Cage’s speech about victimhood and responsibility, but I’d pick it for its acknowledgment that true love does not always make you happy but it always makes you feel alive.
2. The Holiday I like this movie in spite of myself. It is not very clever or witty but I love the love stories, not just Kate Winslet and Jack Black and Cameron Diaz and Jude Law but also Kate Winslet and Eli Wallach as her neighbor, a screenwriter from Hollywood’s golden era.
3. The January Man This was a surprising choice because it is a little-known thriller. The Hendricks picked it for just one scene at the beginning and they are right that it is a good model about how to talk honestly about relationships.
4. Truly, Madly, Deeply One of the wisest and most touching love stories ever made, this is about loving and letting go as a young widow (Juliet Stevenson, utterly luminous) must choose life for herself after a great loss. It has a rare romantic lead performance by the magnificent Alan Rickman and there is a magical scene when the two of them are reunited.
5. Monsoon Wedding Every possible variation of family relationships is lovingly explored in this wonderful story of the importance of honesty and loyalty.
Beliefnet
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posted August 13, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I am a bog fan of the “Bucket List”. It isn’t about what they did but how they effected each other, and those around them.
Also, I love “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” (what, 2 Jack Nicholson flicks?) – it is a true story of love among people with no power and little hope.
One of my all time is one many folks dismiss, “Follow Me Boys”, a Disney movie from the early sixties. Fred McMurray is a scoutmaster in the early 20th century (Disney’s idealized era) and he is dealing with a band of rascals and helping them mature appropriately. There is one scene that is as good as and predates both Dirty Dozen and Devils Brigade. (I’m a former scout and cub and scoutmaster, and I think that influences my decision)
Relationship movies are tough – it depends on how you are defining relationships. Clearly these a “guy” relationships.
posted August 13, 2008 at 12:06 pm
A correction – I know Cuckoos nNest is not true as in historic. I meant true as in authentic representation, straight, edged.
posted August 13, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Don’t forget “Boy’s Town” with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, jestrfyl.
Nell, I really enjoy “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” which I have on VHS. Juliet Stevenson is amazing playing the heroine, Nina, and Alan Rickman is equally wonderful. What I find particularly interesting about the film
(Spoilerish remark below)
is it is almost a perfect representation of the Jungian concept of the “Ghostly lover” who takes the heroine away from the real world. I found it really significant that when the ghosts begin to camp out in her flat, all they want to do is watch movies. In a sense, that is part of the heroine’s withdrawal from the world. I know that one of the reasons I love movies so much is because I have a problem with reality, at least I do at times. I’m sure you can relate. I know I can.
posted August 14, 2008 at 11:04 am
Reality is a pale replacement for a enfeebled fantasy life.