Romance for men

If you watch Walk the Line for a second time, several things will jump out at you:

1. It's really, really well-written.
2. The acting is even better than you thought the first time around, especially the Folsom Prison scene for Joaquin Phoenix, and - well, pretty much every scene she's in for Reese Witherspoon.
   
3. It's a romance.

Okay, so it has drugs and cheating and mental breakdowns and stuff in it, and it's really one man's story. But it's a romance. From the moment he hears June's voice on the radio, it's meant to be. He spends a lot of the film trying to be worthy of her, really. Trying to grow up enough to get her to say yes.

And that last scene just gets better every time you watch it.



Really, see that last scene a few times. He sings "Ring of Fire", then gives June the credit for writing it, and they exchange looks - it takes a second viewing before you realize she wrote a song about being in love with him and they both know it. Then he proposes to her on stage, and she tries to laugh it off, but he won't let it go. He gets serious, and that look he gives her - all intense passion and, yes, love - is amazing. He says, "I know I've hurt you and done lots of terrible things.." and her face crumples for that brief second, you know she's been putting up a front all this time.

Then he swears never to do it again, and gives her That Look. And she says yes.

This is the kind of thing that gets scoffed at in a romance novel, or even a film marketed as a "romance" or a "chick flick". Take the same scene, place it in an Important Serious Film About An Icon, and you win awards all over the place, and no one scoffs or even mentions the word romance. Suddenly, everyone's raving, because the story is good, and the writing and the acting is good, and it digs deep for real human emotion, and it's just so moving.

What's the difference? Men watched that film in droves, and they loved it. It spoke to them - not just the romance, but the whole thing.

So, let's keep this our female secret. No one tell them they loved a romance, okay?