Modern Love at the Movies: Our Favorite Oscar-Worthy Love Stories

Modern Love

The New York Times

Nytimes, Redemption, Society & Culture, New York Times, Love, Essay, Storytelling, Loss, Nyt

4.4 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The New York Times’s film critic Alissa Wilkinson has a theory about movies: They’re all about relationships. No matter how big the action, the suspense and tension we experience when watching a film is often really about the feelings between the characters. But romantic relationships often fall back on old tropes, like the long-suffering wife of an ex-cop who can’t resist that one last, risky case. (We all know her; she leaves teary voice messages urging him to be safe.) Some of this year’s Oscar-nominated films give us fresher portraits of love. Alissa and our host, Anna Martin, discuss the relationships that defy convention or easy definition, and push us to reconsider how we think about human connection, in three of those movies: “Poor Things,” “Maestro” and “Past Lives.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Love now and
0:04.0	stronger than anything.
0:05.0	Love is stronger than anything.
0:08.0	I feel love for love.
0:09.0	And I love you more than anything.
0:11.0	There's still love.
0:13.0	From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
0:18.0	This is Modern Love.
0:19.0	And you might have noticed we're having a little fun on the show this week.
0:23.2	On Wednesday, I talked to my colleague Ested Herndon about how romance and politics collide on
0:28.5	the election beat.
0:29.9	And today, we're going to hear from someone with, I think, the most fun job at the entire New York
0:35.9	Times, besides podcast host, that job is movie critic.
0:40.7	Of course, a modern love we think a lot about how love is portrayed in print and in sound
0:45.3	but Alyssa Wilkinson spends her time looking at love on the big screen
0:50.6	According to her in almost all films, relationships drive the action.
0:55.0	I think all movies are really about relationships.
0:58.0	I mean, even if you think about a movie like Gravity or The Martian, right?
1:02.0	The main character is alone, but it's a movie about them being alone, which makes
1:07.5	it a movie about relationships, right?
1:10.7	Like a relationship to self kind of story.
1:13.0	Yes, and just the absence of whatever their relationships are, you know, you feel it and that's what brings the drama.
	...

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