MIRANDA AND STEVE, SEX & THE CITY (2008)
So, you know that whole thing about how men and women are different? Well, here’s a good example: for women, last year’s big-screen adaptation of the beloved HBO estrogen-fest was a feel-good romantic comedy, while for many straight guys, it was nothing short of torture-porn. And no, I’m not talking about Kim Cattrall’s sex-positive female drag queen Samantha, who got all the best lines and looked pretty damn hot wearing nothing but sushi. And I’m certainly not talking about the sweet pairing of Kristin Davis’ ray-of-sunshine Charlotte and her frog-prince fellah, Harry (the closest thing in the Sex-iverse to a normal, healthy relationship...albeit one padded by Davis’ relentlessly cheery demeanor, perfect cheekbones and boundless Upper East Side gelt). I’m not even talking about SJP’s Carrie and Chris Noth’s Mr. Big, two gigantic pains in the butt who truly deserve each other. No, the couple that curdles my gonads even worse than Norman Bates and his mama in Psycho or Kathy Bates and James Caan in Misery is, yes, Steve and Miranda, that terrifying nightmare combo of pussy man and man-eating pussy. David Eigenberg’s Steve is every spineless masochist convinced that low self-esteem = sensitivity, while Cynthia Nixon’s endlessly miserable harridan Miranda is the sort of castrating, ball-busting career woman stereotype that men get branded as chauvinists for perpetuating and women (at least Sex & The City fans) somehow find empowering. After months of celibacy and endless abuse, Steve finally cheats on Miranda, who subsequently withholds even more sex and unleashes even more abuse in retaliation, until she finally deigns to forgive Steve at a meeting in the middle of the usually romantic Brooklyn Bridge. But my only thought as I watched Steve (through my fingers) approaching his awful, awful wife was, “NO, STEVE! NO!!! RUN AWAY!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!” But Steve didn’t listen. Characters in horror movies never do.
HARRY LIME & ANNA SCHMIDT, THE THIRD MAN (1949)
Technically, as poisonous as it is, this shouldn’t be listed as one of the most toxic romantic duos in screen history; it really needs to be considered as a romantic triangle. In brief: Holly Martins is Harry Lime’s best friend, and Anna Schmidt is Harry Lime’s best girl. Holly Martins begins to suspect that Harry Lime is not such a swell fellow after all – as, not coincidentally, he begins to suspect that Anna Schmidt would be better off with him, anyway. Holly learns that Harry is a heel, but Anna not only doesn’t rush into the tender and loving arms of the upstanding Holly – she doesn’t give him the least bit of play, and goes on loving Harry even after it becomes clear to everyone that Harry didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. There’s so much more to this amazing, groundbreaking noir film than that, but the impossibly frustrating relationship between the three people forever remains at the center of it: Harry’ selfish, caddish treatment of the people he claims to love; Anna’s impossible devotion to a man who loves her but never as much as he does himself; and Holly’s shock at the betrayal of his friend – and even greater shock at how Anna doesn’t react in the same way as he does to that betrayal. The Third Man is filled with moving, telling moments that portray both the depth and the damage of the relationship, from Harry doodling love notes to Anna in the window of a Ferris wheel to Anna’s heartbreaking long walk at the end. What makes it even more astonishing is that the movie accomplishes all this while never even showing us Harry and Anna in the same room together.
SID & NANCY, SID & NANCY (1986)
He was the immature, unstable bassist for chaotic punk pioneers The Sex Pistols. She was a shrill American obsessed with the band. Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen’s love affair was one for the anarchic ages, a relationship forged by heroin and defined by violence and pathetic need. Ending in 1978 when Sid stabbed Nancy to death in New York City’s famed Chelsea hotel, followed a year later by his own fatal overdose while awaiting trial for her murder, their amour was of a blisteringly dysfunctional sort, and depicted by director Alex Cox with squalid, impassioned romanticism in 1986’s Sid & Nancy. Electrified by dual lead performances from Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb that reek of grungy, rancid desperation, Cox’s love story is a magnetic spectacle of sordid self-immolation, a tale of love’s consuming, destructive potential which the director – capturing both the intoxicating fervor of Sid and Nancy’s mutual infatuation and the foulness of their junkie downfall – depicts with equal parts disgust, pity and compassion.
AOYAMA & ASAMI, AUDITION (1999)
A lonely widower with a young son, TV producer Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) is convinced by a friend to stage phony auditions in the hopes of finding a new spouse. That process leads him to Asami (Eihi Shiina), a prim, dainty, mysterious beauty to whom he grows dreamily attached over the course of a few dates. As implied by a scene in which she waits patiently by the phone for Aoyama’s call, Asami isn’t exactly what she seems. And neither, it turns out, is Takeshi Miike’s film, commencing like a patient, thoughtful Yasujiro Ozu-inflected domestic-drama meditation on marriage, responsibility and social pressures, and then shifting gears to become something far more unnerving. None of the director’s subtle hints at forthcoming horrors quite prepare one for the stunningly disturbing finale, which not only involves the immediate end of Aoyama and Asami’s relationship, but – viciously building upon their romance’s unequal economic, social and gender dynamics – reveals the film to be a proto-feminist nightmare custom-engineered to scar the male psyche.
WALTER NEFF & PHYLLIS DIETRICHSON, DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)
In noir, love and sexual desire are equally deadly, driving men (noble or corrupt) to throw caution to the wind and take risks that invariably spell their doom. A prototypical example of that recklessness is the case of Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), an insurance salesman whose routine life is plunged into deadly disarray by Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), a platinum blonde beauty whose body goes vroom-vroom-vroom and whose eyes promise an early grave. When Phyllis asks Walter how she might take out a policy on her husband’s life without actually informing him about it, the agent balks, but such initial protestations are as sturdy as wisps of smoke, and it’s not long before the smitten Walter is knee-deep in a scheme to knock off Phyllis’ spouse and run away with her and the substantial insurance payout. As is customary in the doom-laden genre, however, all that awaits the couple is tragedy, Neff’s ignominious end a result of fate’s cruel hand and, just as fundamentally, a foolhardy romantic fantasy unattainable in a cold, indifferent world.
Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five & Six
Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Nick Schager