Sometimes a film just moves us in profound, revelatory ways. Example: the monumental classic, Bride Wars.
Here are eight embarrassing movies we’re kind of ashamed to admit made us cry.
‘Bride Wars’
The movie: Before Anne Hathaway cried her way to an Oscar, before Kate Hudson tap danced onto Glee, before Chris Pratt became the Internet’s next JLaw, 2009 brought us Bride Wars. A story of two childhood besties fighting over a wedding venue, this instant classic earned a coveted 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. As “Top Critic” Peter Rainer from the Christian Science Monitor put it, “Bride Wars makes Sex and the City seem like Jane Austen.”
The scene: After doing every horrid thing imaginable to ruin each other’s Big Day, the two life-long friends each wait outside their respective chapel as they prepare to walk down the aisle. And in one silent, shared glance, one teary, regretful smile, we know that they’ve finally realized that even though they’ve spent the past few months fighting and biting, when it comes down to it, they each only want the absolute best for their best friend.
How it went down: As I sat there in the darkened theater, I realized that it must be raining, because my face was wet, and I couldn’t possibly be crying during a Kate Hudson movie. It was like How to Lose Your Dignity in 10 Minutes. I blame Anne Hathaway’s baby-doe eyes.
But I think that what struck a chord in my obviously iron-deprived mental state was how true to life that one moment felt: that sense of longing for the connection you share with someone as children. Loving so easily in that unabashed, uninhibited way that children can love.
Because the thing about childhood friendships is that (like in Bride Wars) there kind of always is an alpha and a beta friend. There’s the one who always got to be the Pink Power Ranger, and the one who always ended up playing someone’s dog. And that’s why these friendships don’t usually last into adulthood. We grow up, and we grow apart, and we want to be our own self-actualized people. And this movie somehow, in that one loving look that is exchanged between the two women, perfectly encapsulated the beauty and organic evolution of female friendships.
‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’
The following excerpt comes from a Hypable staffer who wishes to remain anonymous due to her humiliation. So for the sake of this article, we’ll just call her “Karen Rought.”
The movie: This is that film where anyone who has ever won a groundbreaking Oscar, been bestowed a knighthood, and/or hosted the Tony’s more than three times is forced to put on black spandex in order to rectify the disaster that was The Last Stand.
The scene: When we realize that The Last Stand at last no longer stands.
How it went down (in “Karen Rought’s” own words): “Most people cry during sappy romance movies. I cry during action films. There’s just something about those intense explosions and those unstoppable fight sequences that takes me higher and higher, right until the point that the world is saved, the girl gets the guy, and everyone goes home happy. I didn’t cry during The Fault in Our Stars, but I spent the last half hour of X-Men: Days of Future Past in tears. And the thing is, I knew it was coming, deep in my bones. I knew that the end of the film would reveal exactly what we all wanted it to show: a happy ending. But when Wolverine turns the corner and sees a bright future in front of him, I knew I was a goner. And when he looked up and saw Jean, I lost it. There were tears. There was shaking. There was even some hyperventilating, just for good measure. And there were definitely glances exchanged between my friends, as if to say, ‘Who brought her here?’ and ‘Doesn’t she know you’re not supposed to cry during action movies?’ Well, no one told me that.”
‘Alice in Wonderland’
The movie: This is the Tim Burton film where Johnny Depp resembles a cheerful, full-size Chuckie doll, and we find out what Hey Arnold would look like with lipstick.
The scene: After defeating the Jabberwocky, Anne Hathaway gives Alice a potion so she can click her heels and go home again, and just as she is about to take it… Johnny Depp, with his big, beautifully demonic eyes asks her to stay. BUT SHE CAN’T, she says with a smile. She’s got things to do. Questions to answer. So she goes home, kicks her fiance to the curb and boldly begins her trading empire.
How it went down: I was a sophomore in college when I dragged my friend (who for the purposes of this narrative we’ll call “Celery Jones”) to go see Alice in Wonderland LIVE IN 3D AND IMAX. Earlier that day, I had read an interview where Gene Simmons was asked what he wanted in life for his daughter, Sophie. He said that his goal for her was simple: that she would never need to define herself by a man. He said that society had conditioned women to believe that they couldn’t be fulfilled in life until they found that perfect prince that would complete them. He wanted his daughter to never live her life by what the hypothetical “he” wanted, but instead, by what she wanted.
So later that day, Celery Jones and I went to to the epic LIVE IN 3D AND IMAX screening. And when Alice turned down the Mad Hatter and instead sailed off into the great unknown like she was mofo-ing Indiana Jones and the world appreciated her brains and her beauty and her enterprising spirit, I was grateful for those absurdly large, fogged up 3D glasses that hid my silent, streaming tears. Because I realized that for a minute there, I actually thought that in the absence of a more suitable alternative, this movie was going to hook up this teenage girl with a middle-aged lunatic clown, because I had been conditioned to believe that a heroine can’t succeed in the story until she finds love with a man. GENE SIMMONS WAS RIGHT. The titular character found fulfillment within herself and I was surprised. America, what are we doing to our girls?
“These glasses are giving me a headache,” Celery said when the movie ended. I could only nod, as I was still recovering from my very real state of lost and regained muchness. “Ummm… are you okay?” she asked. No Celery Jones, I am not okay. Did we not just watch the same movie? I have had a very personal come-to-Jesus revelation and all of my Disney Princess fantasies have just been shattered. We should go out and embrace the world and our part in it. WE ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES. Go achieve your dreams, dammit.
‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence’
The movie: Back when Haley Joel Osment was relevant, he was a robot with a soul and had an animatronic teddy bear.
The scene: Humanity has died out so aliens dig Haley Joel Osment out of the ocean and stick him in a room to play with his teddy bear so they can study human nature.
How it went down: Flashback to 2002, and my family’s having a movie-night watching A.I. Artificial Intelligence on a warm summer evening. Those aliens dig that robot kid out of the water, and we’re forced to realize that everyone he has ever loved is like, totally dead forever, and the credits roll and everyone’s just sitting there in the living room in silence. Tears are flowing down my face. My mother leaves the room to find some tissues. My dad coughs.
And then my nine-year-old brother (who for the sake of his anonymity we’ll refer to as “Taco,”) lets out a loud gasp and starts SOBBING. I mean this kid is choking on his tears. He’s hyperventilating on the floor and it’s like HE CAN’T BREATHE. The teddy bear and robot-Haley: IT’S ALL TOO MUCH.
For a minute, we all sit there flabbergasted. Like, what we supposed to say? Hey Taco, I’m sorry this kid who is approximately your age now has to live as an alien experiment until eventually, after a few more millenia, his batteries give out? By now my brother has crawled into a fetal position on the living room floor, letting out occasional Shakespearean gasps of, “But why?! BUT WHYYYYYY??!!!!!!” My mother finally goes over to try and calm him down, but her soothing words of, “IT’S JUST A MOVIE, TACO” make little difference as Taco spreads his arms out to the sky in anguish.
My dad starts laughing. By now, my five year-old sister, who wasn’t even watching the movie, is also sobbing. As an indignant 11-year-old I cry out, “You just want attention, Taco! I think it’s sad too! Look at me! I’m crying! This is just like that time you burned your hand on the furnace!”
Turn to page 2 for more embarrassing stories, including ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Harry Potter’
‘The Help’
The movie: You is kind. You is smart. You is important.
The scene: When teenage Emma Stone is sad because all the boys think she’s ugly and her mama hates her hair, Constantine shows up to remind her that we all make our own kind of beautiful.
How it went down: Okay, so I like really love old people. They’re so wise and stuff, and they look at you with those eyes filled with knowing. So every time I watch that scene where Skeeter remembers just how much Constantine meant to her, I kind of lose it. I can’t even blame it on the mood lighting of the movie theater, because even when The Help pops up on TBS, there I am with a bucket of brownies, suppressing my sobs.
Growing up is hard for all of the awkward little dreamers, but it’s women like Constantine that make the longing for the future bearable by making us feel the presence of our own inner beauty. “Your mama didn’t pick her life; it pick her. But you… you’re gonna do something big with yours.”
’13 Going on 30′
The movie: Jennifer Garner plays a 13-year-old who makes a wish and wakes up in the future in her 30-year-old body. Marc Ruffalo co-stars as Marc Ruffalo.
The scene: Jennifer Garner rushes to her best friend’s wedding to profess her love, and then IN A SHOCKING ROM-COM TWIST… he marries his fiancee anyway.
How it went down: My mother, my seven-year old sister (who for the sake of this anecdote we’ll call “Goji,”) and I were enjoying a ladies night in with what was sure to be a delightful Jennifer Garner rom-com. It was cute. It was charming. It had sweet messages about self-empowerment, and kindness, and internal beauty.
So then when Matty turns down his bff Jenna to marry that nameless skank of a fiancee,* it comes off as kind of a shock. Like, where was the fairytale ending we were promised? And hey Marc Ruffalo, why are you making my homegirl Jenny stand there like a loser awkwardly clutching her Barbie Dream House?
And Jennifer Garner is crying, so obviously my eyes are also starting to water because when she cries she looks like a homeless kitten, and I am not a monster. And I was like wow, this movie is really driving home that whole ‘Be careful what you wish’ for lesson, because unless they’re going to make Jenna a 13 year-old mistress, Matty is so over. And then from the corner armchair, we hear a sob erupt. We look over and Gogi is sitting there, clutching her knees to her chest, fingers in her mouth, stifling cries.
SHE IS HEARTBROKEN. Like, she just got left at the altar for Jennifer Garner-level heartbroken. The pillow she’s clinging to for dear life is covered in tears and saliva and probably snot, and my mother rushes over and Gogi kind of just breaks down into her lap, like even the struggle to hold her head up is too much for her just now. “What’s the matter?!” my mother asks, genuinely concerned that her seven-year old’s appendix has burst and/or something equally traumatic has happened. But no. It’s just that Jennifer Garner’s loneliness is too much for little Gogi to bear.
The movie kept running and as it turned out, 13 Going on 30 is not as deep as I had suspected because Jennifer Garner ends up going back to the eighties and buying a big house with Matty (since she’s a time-traveler, she knew to invest in Microsoft.) “Look! Look!,” my mother implores to a sobbing Gogi, “The Barbie house is magic!” Gogi is lost to us though, in a wave of sorrow and tears. She’s seven years-old and Marc Ruffalo is her first heartbreak.
*She’s actually probably lovely. We have nothing to really go off of except that we are obviously on Team Jenna so #sisterhood.
‘Toy Story 3’
The movie: Andy gets ready for college and Woody and the gang get sent to an evil preschool with evil teddy bears.
The scene: Andy plays with his toys for the last time and our childhood is over.
How it went down: For people around my age, growing up with Toy Story has been kind of a cool experience. We were kids when the first movie came out, and by the time the third one was released, we were in that awkward childhood meets adulthood limbo state that Andy also found himself in as he prepared to go off to college. So when Andy finally makes the decision to give up his toys to the next generation of imaginative dreamers, it’s kind of this beautiful, bittersweet moment. It’s about learning to let go so you can move on, and knowing when it’s time to let others move on too.
I went to go see Toy Story 3 in theaters with my thirteen year-old sister, and when it got to the end, I found myself dabbing at my eyes with tissues. Gogi saw this and turned to me bewildered, “Why are you crying?” she snapped, “It’s just a cartoon.” I couldn’t believe my ears. Are you seriously sitting here judging me, Gogi? I just told everyone the story about how you lost your shiz during a Jennifer Garner rom-com. Let me have my polite, ladylike cry.
‘Deathly Hallows Part 1’
The movie: This is the film where the trio goes camping. It contains my favorite scene in the entire film series: Harry and Hermione awkwardly dancing in the tent. It is my favorite scene because since it wasn’t in the books, it couldn’t be bastardized by the movies.
The scene: Spoiler alert: Dobby died.
How is went down: I’m going to tell this story at the risk of sounding like a soulless monster who’s made one too many horcruxes. I did not cry when Dobby died. I did not cry, because I was too busy hating the 18-year-old woman sitting next to me. Let me start from the beginning…
It was November 2010, and like every other millennial alive, my friends and I had made strict plans to attend the midnight premiere of Deathly Hallows, part 1. One of these friends, who for the sake of this anecdote we’ll call “Banana,” had struck up a tepid friendship with a young freshman, who for the sake of this anecdote we’ll refer to as “Little Grape.” Banana did not know Little Grape very well, but after a short conversation in which Little Grape lamented the fact that she did not have any friends with whom to attend the premiere with, Banana promptly took pity on the fellow Potterhead, and invited her to come along with us.
Of course, almost as soon as the movie started running, the cries in the sold-out theater stuffed with sleep-deprived college students were audible. Hedwig died, and Banana was already pulling out the tissues. Bad stuff happens. Ronald Weasley looks sexy. Harry and Hermione almost make out. More bad stuff happens. Ronald Weasley still looks sexy. Harry and Hermione actually do make out. Even more bad stuff happens. Dobby dies. There are some audible sobs in the corner.
BUT THEN, sitting right next to us, Little Grape just LETS IT GO. I mean this girl starts SCREAMING. It’s like she’s watching a dingo make off with her baby right in front of her. And she just won’t stop. Like, DanRad is talking to Hermione Granger about their plan for DH Part 2, and she’s there shaking and sobbing and SCREAMING like a maniacal banshee.
There are appropriate ways to cry in a movie theater; this was not it. Little Grape is LOSING IT, and pretty soon, row by row, people’s heads are turning. The entire movie theater is shooting us a collective zombie death glare. The sorority girls a few rows up look at us and shake their heads in disgust. Fuming, I reach across Banana and angry-whisper to Little Grape, “Be QUIET.” But Little Grape is in a zone of her own. She doesn’t take heed. Next to me, our other friend Watermelon more aggressively insists, “You’re ruining everything!” It doesn’t matter. Little Grape finally has the university’s attention. She knows this is her time to shine. In the back row, a guy yells, “SHUT UP!” and throws popcorn in our direction. The credits roll. The house lights go up. Little Grape grabs a handful of tissues and stands up, smiling.