Believable romance is very hard for a director to portray realistically and I believe that the great Directors living today either avoid it, or can’t be bothered with it. The first meeting is critical and often hard to represent seamlessly, and near impossible to do originally.

My three favourite living Directors have a very different approach to building on screen romance and chemistry.

The Coen brothers have made fifteen odd films and I can recall two times when the male and female leads haven’t already been in a relationship; Raising Arizona and Intolerable Cruelty.

Tarantino hasn’t followed through with on screen romance once, although he’s superbly teased us with the idea in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown.

Scorsese on the other hand embraces it and has executed it brilliantly most of the time. The way the leads come together in Alice Doesn’t Live here Anymore, Raging Bull and Goodfellas is cinema gold. One time I think he didn’t get it right was…

The Ludicrous first meeting in: THE DEPARTED

Matt Damon first meeting with Vera in the elevator is fine, but the second romance with Leonardo and Vera is ridiculous. Although I like the idea as it tries to be different with a bizarre love triangle, the execution is poor. Leonardo is a violent ex cop out of jail, who tells his psychiatrist on their first meeting that he can stay calm around serial killers, then demonstrates how calm he can be with a steady hand then threatens to kill himself if she doesn’t give him valium. Vera offers him a couple, he goes off his head more, says he should buy some heroin and a gun to kill himself and storms out of her office. She’s annoyed and upset but follows him out of the office with a full script. He then asks her for a coffee and they meet up later.

The actors are fine in this scene but the whole scenario is nuts. It would never happen and takes away from what is otherwise a pretty descent film.

The Believable first meeting: AMERICAN BEAUTY

This is hard to pull off but it works. Wes Bentley is filming Thora Birch in the dark, she tells him to fuck off but he’s fascinated and probably high. He smokes good shit and he’s pretty composed too. Their first interaction at high school Wes walks up and apologises, Thora says she remembers a creep filming her; he’s very intense and doesn’t acknowledge Mena, the pretty but ordinary stupid slut. He says he’s fascinated (or interested) and bang there’s a look that they give each other that’s incredibly convincing. For the rest of the film I’m interested in their relationship as their meeting was unusual, believable and brilliantly executed.

When the stupid works for some fucked up reason: THE DOORS

Val sees Meg at the beach and follows her home and then climbs up a tree and onto her balcony, as you do. She’s not disturbed but sort of fascinated. The dialogue is ridiculous as is the whole encounter but for some reason I don’t mind it. Maybe because, ‘She lives on love Street’ is playing and it seems to somehow fit the tone of the film. Maybe Val is just so hypnotic as Morrison he could have vomited all over Meg and I would've believed the scene could’ve worked.

Do you have any first encounter moments that have stuck in your mind for ludicrous or good reasons?

It's a good scene because Ricky's genuine lack of concern for the school social-order destroys Jane's faux bitchy attitude in two seconds flat.

It seems that this is the scene she really takes a shine to him because he seems perfectly happy rejecting all the "values" she feels compelled to embrace.... against her will it turns out.

Believable: Superman

Kidder and Reeve have terrific chemistry, but it's hard to imagine anyone (men, women, minerals) not being utterly taken with Reeve in this scene. Never mind that he just rescued her (and a helicopter) from a terrible fall, in as charming a manner as possible. This may be the best scene in the movie.

(Note: Yes, Lois had already met Clark... but she hadn't really met him, gnome sayin'?)


Believably ludicrous: The Truman Show

The best part about this scene is that it subverts the typical (and often ludicrous) whirlwhind boy-meets-girl scenario in movies... because the hero ends up being interested in a different girl entirely. It's an interesting comment on how a real, organic life doesn't necessarily fit into the story structure we might impose upon it.


Believable and ludicrous: Back To the Future

One of the most interesting things about this movie is that it uses its sci-fi trappings to gently deconstruct a normal romantic comedy assumption. The girl falls in love with the guy after her dad hits him with a car. It's actually a rather stupid plotting convention, and one of the characters in the movie even points out the stupidity. The movie goes on to retroactively reveal that such beginnings are the poor foundation for a real romance, then gives the two characters another shot at it when someone bumbles in and screws up the original version.

"Bringing Up Baby".

This is about as ludicous as a meet-cute can get. There's no way Hepburn's character wouldn't have a history of eating men way manlier than Grant's character.

But this has to be about the most entertaining thing to watch i think I've ever seen.

Ludicrous: Jack And Rose in Titanic, in real life, it's unlikely they would've ever met one another due to them being in different classes. I didn't buy their relationship for one millisecond.

Great stuff Ken. This could've been a 'Why Woody Allen is So Special' thread, but that's just the sort of response I was searching for. Back to the Future is a **** flick and to have such a silly first meeting weaved beautifully into the context of the film makes it timelessly engaging.

Believable: Before Sunrise

They exchange eyes at each other on the train as they adjacent to each other, then their conversation begins when Ethan Hawke uses an angry couple as an excuse to make exactly the type of "Uhhhhh...how about those people canyabelieveit?" type comment we've all made. Very believable

Unbelievable: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Hotel employee Mila Kunis feels sorry for schlubby Jason Segal so she gives him a five thousand dollar a night suite for free? I find the movie delightful, but perhaps not the best meeting of a couple.

Some really great examples here. For many I would have to go back and watch the movie.

I agree with Vex: the first most ludicrous and unbelievable romance encounter which came to mind was the one in Titanic - yeah, a hot first class chick just decided to commit sicide on poop deck (that's the 100% correct technical term BTW) while a third class lad takes a stroll and successfully talks her into not doing it, causing a series of misunderstandings and events ending up as his ticked to meet the rich and famous AND the key to her heart: B.S.!!!!

Anyway I took the liberty and post a very comprehensive source of information. Pick your fav:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MeetCute

be sure to cklick on the "main" trope: boy meets girl.

Wait until you see Battleship. (well, maybe you wont) Easily has the worst meet-cute in history.

It involves a dive bar, a chicken burrito and a convenience store robbery. Nuff said.

You got to see Battleship already? Damn i'm jealous! I looked on IMDB and noticed that it's already opened almost everywhere oversea already.

Guys...check me.

Probably my favorite movie, Swingers, has a fucking great "first scene romance encounters." Those of you that have seen it know what I'm talking about. Mikey finally is getting over his ex on his terms, when he is ready. He goes out to The Derby with his boys, they're doing their thing with the ladies (not his style), and he walks off to the bar. At the bar, he catches eyes with a gorgeous women across the way. It's that look...and they both give it. That look that says I want you.* And then Mikey decides, I'm doing this...I'm gettin' this bunny. But does he say all the right things? Is he one suave motherfucker? No...but he still gets the girl.

This is real. This is how is happens sometimes with the huge majority of dudes out there who are not the most confident in approaching the opposite sex. When they finally do approach...it's not smooth. It's not "cinematic." But it's real. The right girl knows this...

Check me on this.


*(But I'm not a whore.)

500 Days of Summer - Believable

When Gordon-Levitt's character literally doesn't know how to play their first meet and is then offended when she doesn't notice him playing a Smiths song in the office shorly afterwards.

I think it brilliantly sums up the fact that we just torture ourselves for the hell of it sometimes. By this time he'd already spun a significant narrative in his head despite knowing nothing about her.

I personally found 500 Days to be very overrated and I didn't find the relationship believeable at all, someone actually went to the trouble of putting all the "days" in the movie in chronological order on a list, and when you look at it that way, it dosen't seem very realistic, this recap sums up my feelings perfectly: http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/500_Days_of_Summer_2009.aspx