I'm concluding my second-anniversary celebration with another second-chance romance episode, featuring movies about finding romance later in life, especially after sadness and disappointment. This theme is one of my favorites, especially as I get older and wade back into the dating pool. It's a funny and bizarre experience at times, but these movies give me hope that my second chance is out there—if only for two hours.
Movies
The Face of Love is described as a "psychological romance" and it's hard to describe its emotional tone: dramatic longing, new romance elation and bittersweet melancholy combined. In other words, my idea of perfect romance right now. I believe they did love each other, even if it was based on shifting emotional sands — you'll have to tell me if you agree. Warning: this is not exactly an HEA, but the journey is beautiful.
The Love Punch is the most ridiculous but adorable British farce set in motion after a divorced middle-aged couple, played by Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan, discover their retirement nest egg has been stolen through corporate mismanagement. How they get revenge and reconnect at the same time is delightful, but I would watch these two perform a diner menu, so perhaps I'm not the best judge.
It's not everyone's cup of tea, but 10 Things We Should Do Before We Break Up about a single mother (Christina Ricci) who gets pregnant from a one-night stand with a handsome man-child (Hamish Linklater), and their decision to make an honest attempt to make the relationship work, is a HFN (Happy for Now) romance, and refreshingly real because of it.
Marry Me is a super slick, commercial romcom, but I thought it was very entertaining, mainly because I was rooting for second-chance love for the middle-aged protagonists, winningly —and somewhat unrealistically —played by Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson.
Dating and falling in love when you're older can be challenging, scary and push every single one of your buttons — and that's only the first few dates. Enough Said.
If you've never seen Bette Davis as an ugly-duckling-turned-swan after escaping her controlling mother and falling in love with a handsome, unhappily married man in Now, Voyager, you haven't seen one of the best second-chance romances ever made.
Based on the best-selling novel by Sinclair Lewis, Dodsworth is the story of a self-made but unhappily married millionaire (Walter Houston) who realizes that money doesn't equal happiness after he meets a compassionate, intellectual widow (Mary Astor) and gets a second chance at true love.
Books
The slightly older, wiser, bantering protagonists of Beach Read and Book Lovers are a romantic delight.
They're still young and gorgeous when they get their second chance but Bittersweet, part of the wonderful True North series, is a warm-hearted, hot, and passionate romance.
The Dirty Little Midlife... a.k.a. Heart’s Cove Hotties romance series is the hot, sexy romcom we all want to star in at midlife —and beyond.
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