500 Days of Summer : Romantic love doesn't last

so why does anyone buy into the fantasy that Hollywood tries to sell that it does?

At best it lasts a couple of years. Seriously.

Train Yourself to Let Go of Everything You Fear to Lose
Master Yoda

Most girls have that fantasy hammered into them from birth,it all started with that bastard Walt Disney.

Pretty much what LetumEAT said. I think most relationships don't last because of this fantasy.

I think Disney perpetuated this idea, but I think this is probably as old as time itself, especially for women when they didn't have many other choices besides marriage. It is only recently that women have had options to take care of themselves, to have a (respectable) job. After all, if your only choice is marriage, the poor house or prostitution, do you really want to spend it in a loveless marriage. Romeo and Juliet are long before Disney, and despite the ending, it was a story about falling in love with the perfect someone, spending the rest of their lives together, having children, growing old together. It even goes back as far as Biblical times, Jacob toiling for seven years for Rachel's hand, and then another seven when her father Laban, tricked him into marrying her older sister. It's probably more obvious now, because of Disney, but older movies do as well. "An Affair to Remember" "Casablanca" "African Queen" all perpetuate the idea of falling in love with your forever person. It runs through fiction, Jane Austen's books as well as the Brontes. Even mysteries, Lord Peter Whimsy and Harriet Vane (I think that is her name), as well as the romances between couples in the Anne Perry mysteries. On the other hand, Ian Fleming did a great job of perpetuating the idea of women just jumping in bed with James Bond with no expectation of marriage. And heaven knows, Hugh Hefner does the same thing with his Playboy "philosophy" women are playthings, and they (with very few exceptions, since he married a couple of the Bunnies) shouldn't expect to be anything more than a bed partner, expendable when they age out at whatever he decides a woman is "too old," usually over twenty-five.

Loving Criminal Minds and Matthew Gray Gubler

I can't believe that I have to keep telling people this, but life before the technological age was far harder than you can imagine. Fantasies about romantic love kept women somewhat happy while they were desperately trying to survive nature.

Actually it's more the interpretation and expectations that women put on the continuation of those movies. Usually Disney ended happily before any relationship became really involved. Then the "they lived happily ever after" thing is just how people want to interpret that.

If you want it to mean that they never had a problem and things never changed and everything was romantic forever then that's on you. Disney never suggested that reality.

I would say my parents lived happily ever after once they were married. Doesn't mean they didn't have their fair share of fights or issues or that the relationship never changed.

Well most of us* people in general (male + female) have been brainwashed by the media and society with unrealistic expectations about love, sex, behavior and pretty much everything else. I'm glad this movie is critical of what we consider to be love and how pop culture influences "love".

Well if you think about it nothing really last. you just have to enjoy the good things while you have them.

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Liberate tu temet ex inferis.
pro ego sum diabolus, pro ego sum nex.

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Why doesn't it last? You've never been in love or had a long term relationship? My partner and I have been together for 5 years and we're still completely in love. Relationships evolve when with the right person but love doesn't necessarily fade. Very immature post.

Thank you.

I can't believe that I am responding to this thread in support of love, given my individual experiences, but this thread is so negative. It might not be the most common Hollywood fodder but some of the most romantic and heart warming things I've seen in real life have been between couples who have been together for 50 years plus.

Romantic love certainly can last, but both parties have to nurture it.

Back to Hollywood though and check out the closing scenes of "The Notebook". So romantic. This does happen in real life for people who earn it and have a bit of luck along the way.

Now, as a cynical guy I need to go wash my mouth out with soap and watch some football. (Please don't tell anyone I've watched "The Notebook")

I agree: true love only lasts for a couple of years. It is virtually impossible to marry while being completely in love. You need a cold head to make a relationship last, that's life.

What the hell are you guys talking about?

I know couples that have been happily married for decades.

My own grandmother and grandfather were in love until they died.