Overcome

I'm not one who usually cries at the movies. Love Story? Hated it. Beaches? Contrived. The English Patient? I side with Elaine Benes who once said "Quit telling your stupid story about the stupid desert and just die already!"
Over the years there are a few though that have choked me up. I was thinking of this recently because people have been asking me about postpartum depression. I don't suffer from postpartum depression, which can be very serious, but I do attribute hormones to my recent obsession with the easy listening radio station and my strange urge to sing along with Kenny Rogers.

1. Wuthering Heights - The first time I saw this was at the Coolidge Corner movie theater. I cried exiting the theater, I cried waiting for the T to come. I cried on the subway all the way back to Kenmore Square. I might be crying still except that my then-boyfriend told me I'd better stop because people were starting to look at him suspiciously.
The second time I saw this I rented it on Nantucket after Thanksgiving so my relatives could all have a good cry too.

2. Out of Africa - (warning: spoiler!) No relationship is that romantic but I still shed a few tears at the end. My boyfriend cried exiting the theater on this movie. I thought he was crying because Robert Redford died, but it turned out he was really crying because the space shuttle Columbia had exploded earlier in the week. He was always the more sensitive half of the relationship.

3. Champions: A Love Story - This one's only memorable to those of us who grew up figure skating. Those of you who have never heard of this movie can think of "Ice Castles" instead. It was an equally sappy film but no one died - they only figure skated competitively while blind - how realistic!

4. A Night To Remember - Obviously I didn't see this in the theater (it's from 1958). But I did tape it onto Betamax off the TV back in high school and I watched it a lot. I would turn all the lights off on the living room on Wednesday nights when my dad was at the Knights of Columbus and I'd cry at the part where the purser picks up the little boy on the slanted deck after all the lifeboats have left and tells him "we'll be saved." I'd usually pull myself together by the time the Carpathia arrived on the scene.

5. A Tale of Two Cities - This is also from 1958. For some strange reason movies from that year affected me. Unlike "A Night To Remember" I've only seen this movie once, but maybe I'll order it up again from the library since searching the CLAMS network is one of the things I can effectively do one-handed while nursing a baby (or two). I saw this in school, freshman year.
Yes, I cried in the high school auditorium, but I had stopped by the time the lights came back up so I doubt anyone knew. I think the entire freshman class saw this movie together. All the other English teachers brought popcorn for their students. Ms. Spring brought us granola. Even though that's reason enough, that's not why I cried. I cried because Sydney Carton was so dreamy and Lucie didn't appreciate him at all.

song: Overcome • artist: Live