The worst romantic movies

[DeltaAro]

What is the worst romantic movie you’ve yet encountered?

I vote for The Space Between Us.
 

I only watched it because it’s about Mars. Though movies about the Red Planet tend to suck (and include some of the worst office bombs as John Carter on place 7 and Mars Needs Moms on place 18 for loss adjusted to inflation), which is called the Mars Curse. And oh dear, this is no exception.

 

It probably does not get any cheesier, cringier and clunkier than that. And why Britt Robertson, who is in her late twenties, and clearly looks like a grown adult woman, plays a high school girl is a mystery to me.

 

To be fair The Space Between Us was very unintentionally funny and so still kind of entertaining. Highly regarded romantic movies just tend to bore me.

 

 

[BlueKumul]

Twilight. Bella wants to alienate herself from the entire human civilisation and become a blood-sucking demonic entity to please her romantic partner. She's an idiot, yet the viewer is supposed to empathise with her.

 

Also, whenever I see in a movie a character despairing because he's away from his girlfriend, I always think: why doesn't he just visit a prostitute? The sex would be the same, or perhaps better since a P is more experienced ?

 

@DeltaV,  I never heard of the Mars curse but that's a cool concept. I really enjoyed the Martian and John Carter is a nostalgic visit to the world of 1920s sci-fi. Also cool, despite the romantic subplot which doesn't make sense. Humans and Martians would be separate species, so they shouldn't mate with each other.

[Guest Chandrakirti]

Where do I start? Suffice to say I don't go for films that have romances in them...I'm firmly in the action movie side.

[Mark]

20 hours ago, Chandrakirti said:

Where do I start? Suffice to say I don't go for films that have romances in them...I'm firmly in the action movie side.

Unfortunately any mainstream movie can come with romantic sub plot(s).
Even where this makes literally no sense at all.

[DeltaAro]

On 6/16/2019 at 5:12 PM, Spacenik86 said:

Twilight. Bella wants to alienate herself from the entire human civilisation and become a blood-sucking demonic entity to please her romantic partner. She's an idiot, yet the viewer is supposed to empathise with her.

Oh that one…

On 6/16/2019 at 5:12 PM, Spacenik86 said:

I really enjoyed the Martian and John Carter is a nostalgic visit to the world of 1920s sci-fi. Also cool, despite the romantic subplot which doesn't make sense. Humans and Martians would be separate species, so they shouldn't mate with each other. 

The Martian was one of the few successful movies about Mars, and probably the only one I liked so far. I never watched John Carter, but I’ll give it a chance.

[Madame Giraffe]

On 6/16/2019 at 5:12 PM, Spacenik86 said:

Twilight. Bella wants to alienate herself from the entire human civilisation and become a blood-sucking demonic entity to please her romantic partner. She's an idiot, yet the viewer is supposed to empathise with her.

 

OHMY, I read the book years ago when everybody was reading it and I literally throwed it away when she was desparing for months 'cause her boyfriend left her and she even tried to kill herself and COME ON--- is this how people feel love??? And all the girls were delighted by this stuff! I don't think it's a good example for teenagers. 

 

Btw, I vote for Moulin Rouge. All that drama-- all that songs-- ew. 

((Actually i don't watch many romance movies, usually if someone put one on I run away))

[NullVector]

23 hours ago, DeltaV said:

The Martian was one of the few successful movies about Mars, and probably the only one I liked so far

Total Recall?  (the Arnie original of course! I haven't seen the remake)

[DeltaAro]

15 minutes ago, NullVector said:

Total Recall?  (the Arnie original of course! I haven't seen the remake)

Yes, you’re right… it’s about Mars and I liked that one very much. The remake was a victim of the Mars Curse, though.

[Skittles87]

I actually enjoy a good romantic movie, especially romantic comedies. But I've seen some pretty dire ones, and my personal least-favourite is "He's Just Not That Into You".

 

There isn't much of a plot - it's just a bunch of people and their romantic entanglements. What made it so irritating is the relentless sexist stereotyping. Despite the women being beautiful and intelligent with interesting careers, they are all total messes without a man to depend on. They're portrayed as clingy, needy and desperate, while the men are all emotionally-constipated and commitment-phobic. Bleurgh.

 

Also, the fourth Twilight movie. A teenage girl gets knocked up with a vampire baby that makes her all emaciated and weak and damn-near kills her - I just think it would work better as a horror movie than a romance.

 

[nonmerci]

Saw the first Twilight movie, never get so bored in my life. There is no plot at all : just two te ens falling in love for 2 hours.

And let's not forget how the love triangle is solved in twilight 4 : in fact Jacob was never in love with Bella, he was in love with the part of her that will become her daughter (but somehow not the part of Edwards that will become hus daughter,  I guess someone doesn't know how biologique works...). He literally has a crush on a baby (well they don't call it a crush, but he asks Edward if he can call him dad,  meaning he intends to marre his daughter when she will be old enough). What was the author thinking?

 

 Also, Sierra Burgess is a loser. The girl catfish a guy, kisses him while he was thinking he kisses someone else.  But he  still dates her at the end because she write a song to apologize. What?

[mirithepuppy]

sixteen candles. they spend the whole movie just getting to the point where they meet each other, and then they kiss after talking for like 30 seconds. how is that romantic?

also definitely maybe. he's a complete idiot and douchebag, and she forgives him after he shows up years later and gives a halfhearted apology.

[Gemi]

On 6/16/2019 at 11:12 AM, BlueKumul said:

Twilight. Bella wants to alienate herself from the entire human civilisation and become a blood-sucking demonic entity to please her romantic partner. She's an idiot, yet the viewer is supposed to empathise with her.

Yeah, that's defiantly on the list of one of the worst.

Though, Adventureland (comedy/romance/drama) would be my number 1 worst. This was back when Twilight, just got popular. My friend had to see this movie, because the actress from Twilight was in it. Worst movie I ever watched. I like romantic comedies (mostly for the comedy), but this was just painful to watch. I would rather watch Twilight again, over Adventureland.

[Alaska Native Manitou]

Gattaca.  A man is about to go into space for at least 2 years; you'd have to be insane to start a relationship at a time like that, yet the moviemakers felt the need to include one anyway.  It gets worse--there is a love scene at a time when she believes him to be a murderer.  I can only interpret that to mean that she let him do it because she's scared.  The female lead is a well rounded character who is important to the story, but they shouldn't have made her his lover.

[eatingcroutons]

Passengers. I think this article says it well: "It’s a story about a woman inexplicably falling in love with a stalker who ruined her life. And for some reason, we’re meant to root for this relationship." Marketed as a love story, described as a love story by the director, actually fucked-up beyond belief.

[El011]

Oh, I have a long list.

Off the top of my head, Twilight and Call Me By Your Name for glorifying pedophilia, though.

[Skylord]

I'm going to be honest, I don't much care for the A Christmas Prince series, particularly the first one. I probably wouldn't have watched it if my mom hadn't convinced me to and I probably wouldn't have watched the following films if I hadn't seen how hilariously awful the first one was. Right from the start, the main character is deceptive and lies to get to where she's at, but it doesn't matter, they have romance on their side!.. No, just no. I don't care how cute it is, I don't think any sane person would want to marry someone who lied about who they were from the moment you first met, trespassed before that, and literally stole your personal documents. And the character development is, at best, not good. The characters hardly change during the entire 1 hour and 32 minutes. The films that follow are practically the same thing, but the plot consists of them getting married and then having a baby, the "key points" of any normal person's life. Why do people like these kinds of mediocre films? 

[nonmerci]

On 11/12/2020 at 6:17 AM, eatingcroutons said:

Passengers. I think this article says it well: "It’s a story about a woman inexplicably falling in love with a stalker who ruined her life. And for some reason, we’re meant to root for this relationship." Marketed as a love story, described as a love story by the director, actually fucked-up beyond belief.

True! I kinda enjoyed the movie but the reason why she stays with him in the end is mysterious to me. I get why the guy wakes her up (even without the romance part, being alone with no hope, one could become crazy), but :

-it was very selfish for him and he has to face no bad consequences for that

-no matter the reason I would never forgive the person who do that

-he ruined her whole life! She was promised to do interesting things and instead she'll be stuck in a vessel her entre life with just that guy

-she choses to stay with him, she could have gone back... are you telling me that saying with the guy who stays her life is more interesting that wakes up in the future (or I don't really remember what they were doing, but it seems more interesting)? The trope "love is more important than anything else" is annoying but with a guy that lies the whole movie and ruins her ambitions and life, that's even worse

-it is treated as a happy ending!

 

Never really thought about it before but that's very unhealthy.

[El011]

Not a movie but I just remembered this Christian romance novel that everyone here would absolutely hate. It's called Kiss An Angel or something and it's just full of offensive stereotypes about how it's a woman's job to be a free therapist for toxic men, how romance will cure any kind of trauma even if you've literally never had any proper treatment, and how you need to be fixed if you don't like romance because that only ever means you're broken somehow. As a greyro, an abuse survivor, a social worker, and a feminist, this book makes me want to go find the author and yell at her Gordon Ramsey style until she realizes how fucked up and terrible her writing is.

The main characters are named Daisy and Alex and they've been pushed into a marriage arranged by Daisy's dad Max. Daisy agreed to it because Max promised to pay off her debts, and Alex agreed because he feels like he owes Max a favor.

Daisy is very sweet and intelligent and seems like a generally nice enough person. She's very tenderhearted and flighty and apparently made some incredibly bad decisions like becoming a shopaholic as a coping mechanism after her mom died and racked up enough debt that she's at risk of going to prison, so now she has to marry Alex and live with him at the traveling circus where he works.

Now Alex is never actually called aro but he is basically every stereotype of an aro cishet man. Promiscuous, callous, coldhearted, cynical, uncaring, terrible communication skills. He was abused as a kid and is convinced he can never feel love for anything or anyone because of that, but he begins to love and respect Daisy as a friend and improve as a person, plus the two of them have some fantastic sex which is fun to read.

Then they find out she's pregnant because Daisy's stepmother sabotaged her birth control and it turns out that both of them are descended from prominent families with ties to the Russian monarchy. Max tells Alex and Daisy he arranged the marriage because he's an emotionally abusive misogynist obsessed with Russian history and expects his daughter to be an incubator just so he can have a kid descended from both bloodlines.

Because of Alex's past he's convinced he's going to be a terrible dad and tells Daisy to get an abortion, which is totally an asshole move (she's pro-life, which would be fine because it's her body her choice, but the whole abortion dilemma is framed like abortion is the worst thing anyone could ever possibly do and is obviously meant to guilt trip the reader into also being pro-life) and she runs away in response. Then he has a huge guilt trip and realizes that Daisy totally cured him with her magical Christian vagina and now he's in love with her, so he goes off to find her and bring her home and they all live happily and romantically ever after.

Edited November 16, 2020 by El011

[Alaska Native Manitou]

Here's a professional look at Twilight.  It makes me glad that I never read or watched it.  

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by 2 Spirit Cherokee Princess

[Neon]

39 minutes ago, 2 Spirit Cherokee Princess said:

Here's a professional look at Twilight.  It makes me glad that I never read or watched it.  

Honestly, it was so bad. I watched it with a some friends as a joke and it got to the point where the criticism was all the same. They couldn't even come up with multiple plot holes. Also it was really uncomfortable. That relationship is so screwed up.

I normally have a rule that I have to read the book first, but I don't think I could get through it.

[cyancat]

...so i actually haven’t watched many romance movies alskdkdls. i tend to avoid them. as such, the “worst” romance movie i’ve watched is howl’s moving castle...? not that it was necessarily a bad movie, but the romance bits felt a bit cheesy to me. and i think it’s mean to be kinda cheesy, especially in comparison to the book (which i do prefer, but that’s more because i appreciate its whimsical and dry sense of humor), so it’s not necessarily a fault in itself. just not something i like is all.

and yes i am in fact just realizing how utterly aromantic that is of me to prefer the less romantic/focused of the two. 

Edited December 5, 2020 by cyancat

[DeltaAro]

On 12/5/2020 at 8:10 AM, cyancat said:

i tend to avoid them. as such, the “worst” romance movie i’ve watched is howl’s moving castle...?

that movie was so crazy I didn't even notice the romance

[ScarfOfSexualPreference]

I mean, I don't love romance movies, so all of them are kind of the worst for me. But I watched the German audio of The Knight Before Christmas on Netflix, to practice, and it was especially hilarious. The girl in the movie is so stupid, and like, empty of any personality other than "millennial." It was something else. But at least there was a chase scene, so... idk?

[Alaska Native Manitou]

I recently remembered Boxing Helena.  CONTENT WARNING.  Note:  I haven't seen it in years; I may get some details wrong.

It's about a surgeon (Julian Sands)  who is obsessed with his beautiful neighbor (Sherilyn Fenn).  He even manages to sleep with her, but that doesn't lead to a relationship.  He's unhappy when she spurns his romantic gestures & ends up with someone the wealthy doctor regards as a dimwitted thug (Bill Paxton).  Eventually he confronts her about sleeping around & not returning his love.  She gets annoyed & walks away, he follows her, she runs--into traffic where a car drives over her legs.  Spoiler for content:

Spoiler

She wakes up in the surgeons house to find her crushed legs have been amputated.  He intends to keep her there until he wins her over.  He tries to treat her like a queen, but she obviously doesn't like being held prisoner.  At one point he gives her a wheelchair so she can move around the house, but she uses it to try to escape; so he amputates her hands.  He then sets her up like a goddess statue in a shrine & worships her until she gets Stockholm syndrome & starts to love him back.  However the thuggish boyfriend isn't that stupid; he's noticed the doctor's strange behavior.  He breaks in, sees what he's done to Helena & kills him.

Spoiler for ending:  

Spoiler

The surgeon wakes up in his office; it was all a dream.  He actually did bring her to the hospital after she was run over.  He goes to visit her hospital room, of course not telling her about his sick fantasy.

 

[Apathetic Echidna]

So...I have so much hate for this movie:

The 5th Wave. 

So teen action/scifi, Earth is post-apocalyptic. Girl meets boy. Turns out enemies were alien sleeper agents who were activated to hunt human. Boy is actually one of those sleeper agents but turned good because he loved her. Not clearly explained, but it seems the only differences between humans and alien sleeper agents is the ability to (romantically) love. 

 

as for Gattaca..

On 11/11/2020 at 8:17 PM, 2 Spirit Cherokee Princess said:

It gets worse--there is a love scene at a time when she believes him to be a murderer.  I can only interpret that to mean that she let him do it because she's scared. 

I always thought of that as her inner drive to breed with the best DNA which fits with the mainstream goals of that world. He maybe a murderer, he may be strange but he gets a good score at the DNA testing station! Then at the end it is more impactful when she drops his hair, realising the person is more important than their DNA. 

@eatingcroutons I missed the advertising hype for Passengers, so when I saw it I thought it was a phycological thriller/horror for at least the first hour.