Boy Meets girl, they fall in love and ride together into the sunset, living happily ever after. That’s the basic premise for almost every other romantic film, here in India and abroad, as well. However, be it couple-on-the-run romance films, or age-defying affairs of the heart, or the growing influence of technology, there are several off-beat movies that take on what love can be different than the usual approach where the idea of romance and relationships is dealt with in its purest form, which do happen to be unrealistic at times. From some rib-tickling comedies to some seriously thought-provoking dramas, here are some of the best off-beat films based around the idea of love.
‘Once’
A girl meets a boy in Dublin and helps him put together a demo disc of his music performances. Later, they fall in love with each other and portray their love through their songs, but their past keeps coming in between them and serves as a haunting reminder that love is not the only thing that can determine if two people can end up being together.
‘Lamhe’
Viren (Anil Kapoor) falls in love with Pallavi (Sridevi), but she decides to marry Siddharth (Deepak Malhotra). The couple dies, leaving behind their daughter (Pooja), who grows up to look just like her mother and eventually falls in love with Viren, who has to battle a sea of emotions to decide who he wants to be with, in his life.
‘Wristcutters: A Love Story’
After his girlfriend broke up with him, Zia (Patrick Fugit) decides to kill himself, only to wake up in a world, which is inhabited by those who die by suicide. Zia picks up a job and befriends a Russian rocker, when he finds out that his ex is in the same world, since she too died by suicide. Anxious to meet her again, Zia sets out on a road trip along with his new friend and a hitchhiker he picks up from the road.
‘Harold & Maude’
Harold (Bud Cort) is extremely rich, but a 20-year-old youngster who is obsessed with death, and spends days planning ways of faking his own death to alarm his mother. Maude (Ruth Gordon) is an extremely eccentric 79-year-old, with an amazing zest for life, while also attending stranger’s funerals. As Harold and Maude, meet on the common ground, with Cat Stevens’ songs playing in the background, their relationship is riveting, to say the least, resulting in the most strange and stirring love stories.
‘In the Mood for Love’
Set in the sixties in the busy lanes of Hong Kong, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, find themselves in a peculiar position as they fall for each other while investigating their respective spouses for extramarital affair. Clearly drawn to one another, both battle their resolve to keep up their own side of their marriage vows.
‘Her’
Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), an introverted writer, after a bitter divorce, buys an Artificial Intelligence system (voiced by Scarlett Johannsson) to help him write, but falls in love with it, instead along the way, once he finds out about the AI's ability to learn and adapt.
‘The Lunchbox’
An unlikely mistake by a tiffin carrier service results in tiffin, that Ila (Nimrat Kaur) made for her husband, being delivered to an elderly widower, who is planning on retirement, Saajan Fernandes (Irrfan Khan). An unusual bond soon develops between the two, through the exchange of letters, as both of them find comfort, companionship and maybe even love, in each other’s company.
‘The Big Sick’
Loosely based on the real-life courtship of comedian Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V Gordon, The Big Sick is a modern-age love story, where Kumail, finds it difficult to ‘go the distance’ with Emily, as he fears his family, who continue to set him up with women from Pakistan, for marriage, that starts putting a strain on his and Emily’s relationship and puts Kumail in a tight spot, where he has to figure out how to deal with their cultural clash, and bond with her family.
Lars And The Real Girl
An award, shy and a deeply introverted Lars (Ryan Gosling) who hates social interactions so much so that he doesn’t even spend time with his own family, brings home a girl he loves, who turns out to be a life-size doll. And no, this isn’t about sex but something deeper and much more sensitive.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) is in a race against time to save the memories of his beloved, after an experiment makes her forget everything about the couple’s relationship and their past. Joel fights till the very end, as if life depends on it and will not rest till he saves those memories.
