Movies with a Message

I love the movies. I also love relationship topics. My career is devoted to the creation of conscious relationships. So this month I’m doing something a little different with my newsletter. I’m selecting three movies that are both entertaining to watch (and quite easy on the eyes, I might add) and have an important relationship message.

All three movies were relatively popular when they came out and you may have seen them. If not, you’ll be truly served by doing so. If you have seen them, I encourage you to watch them again and look for the message they communicate.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith
This is a fun action/adventure film, featuring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The movie opens with the two of them in marriage counseling. Not only is their relationship stale and lifeless, their sex life non-existent. They are emotionally distant from one another.

Soon we discover why. They are both CIA type operatives, trained killers in fact, yet neither of them knows that about the other! Their real identities are a secret. They’re both living a lie. In fact, neither knows much of anything about the other. As the movie progresses, predictably, the truth comes out and it’s fun to watch the drama that ensues.

However, the message part of the movie is delivered at the end when we see them back in the same therapist’s office discussing their relationship after the truth has come out. It’s completely transformed! There’s humor, warmth, closeness and they make a point of telling the therapist how great their sex life has become.

The message is obvious: Secrets create separation and eliminate passion, while revealing creates intimacy and rekindles romance. The movie asks us to look for how we are hiding our authentic selves and/or keeping secrets from our partner’s, and instead, commit to the path of truth-telling and full disclosure.

It should be noted, however, that such a shift from concealing to revealing might lead to some conflict and fighting as it did for Brad and Angelina. They literally tried to kill each other in this movie. But if we work through what’s revealed, we too can end up with deep, satisfying intimacy and a much improved sex life.

Runaway Bride
This is another movie worth watching, if for no other reason than the co-stars are gorgeous. But it too has a great message. The movie stars Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, but it is really about Roberts’ evolution as a woman.

Julia Roberts plays a character who has left four men at the alter, thus the title. As the movie progresses, we learn that in her relationships, she morphs into the woman the men in her life want her to be. When her man loves sports, she loves sports. When her man wants to climb a mountain on their honeymoon, she wants to climb a mountain on her honeymoon. If her man likes scrambled eggs, she likes scrambled eggs.

When she falls in love with Gere and is about to marry him, she runs away again. But this time, she doesn’t run into the arms of another man, she spends some time on her own—finding herself, learning who she is and what she wants.

As the movie ends, she returns to Gere telling him she likes Eggs Benedict. Gere doesn’t understand so she shares her realization that she’s been a chameleon when it comes to men. She’s had no sense of herself, but became the women her men wanted. Now that she knows who she is, she’s ready for a lasting relationship.

The message is clear and powerful. You have to establish a strong sense of self before you can establish a strong intimacy. If you are afraid of being alone, if you are so desperate for love that you’ll become whoever you need to be in order to get someone to commit to you, you’re love life is doomed. This seems obvious, but in my experience as a relationship coach, it is THE most common “mistake” people make. In fact, I’ve written a whole book on the subject. There has to be a “you” before you can create an “us.”

Jerry McGuire
This movie, in my opinion, is the best relationship message movie ever made. I could have written the whole article on this movie alone because it has a number of great messages.

First, there’s a message about male relationships, brilliantly depicted by Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Tom Cruise, about how men can challenge one another to wake up and live lives of integrity.

Secondly and strangely, it also has the absolute worst relationship message/cliché ever spoken in film!—“You complete me.” Again, my whole book is devoted to how common, yet dysfunctional that belief is, so I won’t spend much time on it here. Suffice it to say that we are complete, and to believe otherwise, as nearly everyone does, leads to drama, control and conflict when the other person invariably fails to complete you.

The best message found in Jerry McGuire is one that will be missed by almost everyone. It’s the scene where Renee Zellwegger is ending her relationship with Cruise. As they talk in the backyard, she realizes that Cruise, her husband, is not interested in, or maybe even capable of intimacy. Yet she doesn’t blame or criticize him for it. She’s in pain, for sure, but there’s absolutely no drama, conflict or arguing.

While this movie is famous for such lines as, “You had me at hello,” and “you complete me,” the best line, the one I wish this movie was famous for is, “I did this and I can do something about it.”

“I did this…” She refuses to blame and instead takes responsibility for the condition of their relationship. She sees her part. She reflects on Cruise’s marriage proposal, saying she so desperately wanted to believe it was a true reflection of his heart. Now she realizes it might have simply been a hypothetical question.

The message of this movie is to take responsibility for the condition of your relationship and stop blaming the other person. When you do that, you open to the possibility for true transformation to occur, for if you did it, you can do something about it.

Conclusion
These are great movies to watch over and over again. For they remind us, and burn into our consciousness, that true, lasting intimacy is about:
• Revealing rather than concealing
• Finding “you” before you even consider an “us”
• Ending blame and taking responsibility

See you at the movies!

Roy Biancalana

Roy Biancalana is an author, a certified relationship coach, a certified “Living Inquiry” facilitator and a spiritual teacher. He has been supporting the personal growth and life-transformation of thousands of people for nearly 25 years. His passion is working with men and women who are committed to awakening to their true spiritual nature and experiencing the love life they most desire. With a warm, personal and informal style, Roy specializes in supporting single people in attracting the love of their lives and also helping those who are in committed partnerships experience a deeper level of intimacy. READ MORE

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