Tearjerkers that don’t make me cry, but just make me angry

I love a good weepie. I can also appreciate some quite bad ones (give me a disease of the week TV movie any day of the week). But sometimes a film that is supposed to be moving makes me so angry that I want to scream. Instead of screaming, I’m going to list my top five terrible tearjerkers.

WARNING: This article contains serious spoilers. Also, because I dislike these films intensely, I refuse to watch them again to write this. Therefore my views will be coloured by the inaccuracy of memory.

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Yes, I realise this won best picture, director, actress and supporting actor Oscars, but it is an incredibly stupid film. Here are my problems:

1. Morgan Freeman’s narration
Why? Because it’s a movie law that every film has to be narrated by Morgan Freeman, otherwise it isn’t a “quality” film. He’s hardly in it and his philosophical musings add nothing.

2. The main character’s goal is pointless
There isn’t any money in female boxing so why would it change her life?

3 The random Irish fetishism
When Hilary Swank fights in London, the audience starts chanting “Mo Cuishle”. Why the hell would an English audience know what that means in Gaelic? Oh, and by the way Clint, tartan clad pipers are Scottish, not Irish. There’s a difference.

She’s wearing green because he likes Irish things. 

4. Her parents
I know human beings are capable of immense cruelty, but really, are people that horrible to their own daughter? Even after such a terrible accident? Even if they are trailer trash? Don’t they have feelings? In my experience (watching Maury Povich) trailer trash folks have lots of feelings.

5. The final fight
In a championship fight, if your opponent throws an illegal punch, seriously injuring you, shouldn’t they be disqualified and you win by default? Yet she lies in the hospital bed angry that she never won anything.

6. The ending
Of course it is tragic, moving and upsetting, but it comes from nowhere. You might as well have the lead character in every film get paralysed from the neck down ten minutes before the end and then have to be euthanised by a paternal figure. Would that have made Pee-wee’s Big Adventure an artistic masterpiece?


21 Grams (2003)

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu likes to make films about lots of disparate characters all connected by a tragic event, and 21 Grams is no different. Here we have a woman whose family dies in a car crash (Naomi Watts), the man who killed them (Benicio Del Toro), and the man who receives a new heart from her dead husband (Sean Penn). Inarritu also likes to make films out of sequence, zipping back and forward in the timeline.

Cheer up, it might never happen. Oh yeah, it already did.

I love non-linear timelines as much as the next Tarantino fan, but is there any point when it is clear right from the beginning exactly what has happened and how these people relate to each other? There are exactly zero “ooooooo” moments in this film – no reveals, no surprises, just abject misery.

The whole thing seems to have been created to make the director and screenwriter feel clever. “Oh look,” they say, “I can cut up a story and rearrange it randomly even though it adds nothing to the audience experience.” Well done. You should feel proud.

All the characters are so dull that you don’t really care about how guilty they feel or whatever. But the truly terrible thing about this film is Charlotte Gainsbourg as the heart transplant recipient’s wife. I guess she’s supposed to be English, but as the actress is the product of the song Je t’aime, she has this bizarre, sing-songy mid-Channel accent that makes you want to slit your own throat.

For fans of nipples, there’s a lingering shot of Naomi Watts’s standing to attention, but otherwise this film has nothing to recommend it. Depressing, and not in a good way.


Dying Young (1991)

Firstly, this must have one of the worst titles in film history. It isn’t exactly dynamic, is it? You could at least expect it to be accurate, but no-one dies, young or old. You don’t even get the satisfaction of seeing the bastard with cancer snuff it.

This supposedly heart-warming tale centres on a spoilt brat with leukaemia (played with steely-eyed malice by Campbell Scott) and his “romance” with a beautiful girl from the wrong side of the tracks (a radiant Julia Roberts basking in post-Pretty Woman career glow). For “romance”, read “twisted, abusive relationship”. They meet when he puts an ad in the paper for a sexy nurse. Julia applies and gets the job because, although she has no experience, she has beautiful red locks and a hot bod.

As she cares for him through chemo, he proceeds to belittle her lack of culture by lecturing her on art history. He is studying the German expressionists, y’see, but shows her slides of works by Klimt and Rossetti – neither of whom were German nor expressionists – because they liked to paint naked redheads (I told you it was twisted).

Don’t do it Julia!

By putting her down and lying to her face, he somehow tricks her into falling in love with him and they then go away to a house by the sea. There Julia meets a lovely handyman (played by Vincent D’Onofrio) with whom she has lots in common. Campbell Scott doesn’t like this, so he throws a hissy fit and laughs in their faces about how they watched TV when growing up instead of doing cultural things like him (probably staring at more paintings of naked redheads).

For some reason, the screenwriter and director think you should like Scott’s character, though all he does is whine and be mean to Julia. When they decide to try and fight his disease together at the end, you really are disappointed. Originally he was supposed to die and she ended up with the handyman, but the test audiences hated it so it was changed.

Thanks, Hollywood. Thanks a lot.    


Jerry Maguire (1996)

They lost me at “show me the money”.

I know, Tom. What does it mean? And why do you have to keep shouting it?

Rudy (1993)

Most English people will not have heard of Rudy. It is, however, on the official list of “films it is ok for American men to cry at” – a list which I believe also contains Brian’s Song and Field of Dreams. These are all about American sports, y’see, and crying isn’t gay if it’s about sport.

Anyway, Rudy tells the true story of Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger (Sean Astin – otherwise known as Samwise Gamgee), who has always dreamed of playing for Notre Dame (pronounced “noder dayme”) College’s football team. However, he’s short, not very good at football and doesn’t have the money or brains for college.

Rudy - he may be small but he dreams big.

Most people would leave it at that and get on with their lives, but not Rudy. He’s going to achieve his dream, no matter what it takes. So he goes to junior college and works really, really hard, improving his grades enough to go to Notre Dame for one final semester. All the while he volunteers to mow the grass and to be a “tackling dummy” for the football team – anything to be close to them.

After having to sleep in the locker room because he has nowhere else to go and badgering the coach for literally years, Rudy finally gets a chance to play.

For two minutes.

The film culminates in him playing right at the end of an actual game, and he manages one tackle. And that’s it. That’s what he’s wasted the prime years of his life for. He doesn’t even win the game for the team or anything, just does one tackle after the game’s already won!

Just because you have a dream, it doesn’t mean that it can, will or even should come true. There should be more films with that message, rather than lionising people who do things as pointless as Rudy Ruettiger.

Film review - The King's Speech

This classy telling of a previously little-known story from royal history is a funny and moving film. Small scale, quick paced, yet conversation heavy, director Tom Hooper carries you to a very nice crescendo.  

Colin Firth plays Bertie, Duke of York and future George VI – a man who truly had greatness thrust upon him. As his brother Edward sees more and more of Mrs Simpson, Bertie has to make more public appearances and the stutter that has plagued his life becomes an issue of national importance. Having seen every expert in London, his wife (Helena Bonham Carter) suggests he tries the unconventional speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush).

After some false starts and voice training montages, the therapy begins to work and we find out more about both Bertie and Lionel. This is where the film shines as Firth and Rush spar and then show their true feelings.

Although Firth bears little resemblance to the real Bertie, he’s got the double speech impediment of stutter and rhotacism down pat. The character is often rude and stubborn, but you always get the sense that he’s just hurting inside thanks to Firth’s sensitive performance. Geoffrey Rush is even better as Lionel. His methods may be slightly unconventional for the time, but  he isn’t your normal wacky, inspirational teacher in the Robin Williams mould – he is calm and witty, eclipsing the prince with his dignified air despite his lowly upbringing.

The supporting cast is very good – Bonham Carter is curt and efficient as the future Queen Mum, Guy Pearce makes a cruel Edward VIII and it is lovely to see Ramona Marquez from Outnumbered as the young Princess Margaret. There’s a weird moment for fans of that wet shirt where Jennifery Ehle (playing Lionel’s wife) shares the screen with Firth – Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy are briefly reunited.

Real life is rarely very neat and doesn’t build to many moving crescendos, so obviously the screenwriter has taken liberties with the story. Also, the stakes really weren’t as high as is made out (imagine what would have happened if it was Churchill who had the speech problem). King George inspired people by the deed of staying in London during the Blitz more than through words even after a cure, so really this is about a personal victory.

The King’s Speech is a simple tale, well told, and is incredibly, incredibly nice. Not great, but definitely nice – and there’s nothing wrong with that.