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Best Friends Who Fell in Love

The only protagonist in a movie for whom I felt a semblance of sympathy was the insanely crazy, malicious Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding.  Lunatic as she was, her antics in the movie made many of us laugh, but there was a twinge in my heart when I sensed the impending loss of her best friend to another woman.  Had it been someone other than her best friend, the many empathizing souls within the audience may not have been empathizing after all.
So it got me thinking: What is it about best friends falling in love and making it through the finish line that gets us all warm and gooey?  I suppose it is the dream of coming back home to someone you used to build sand castles with.
Here are some onscreen best friends who made us cross our fingers tightly, wishing they could make it, as though their lives had an unfathomable connection with our own.

When Harry met Sally

Every time I listen to Harry Connick Jr’s ‘It had to be you’, this epic of a romantic comedy comes to mind.  When it comes to friendship evolving into something more, let’s be honest, this movie is a classic.  Two fresh graduates start their journey together while they share a car ride from Chicago to New York.  They drift apart and meet again in sporadic intervals only to find that the constant irritation that they have towards each other has a deeper meaning to it.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

A blockbuster from Karan Johar’s “K” series, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai changed the fabric of Bollywood for good in the late 90s.  A tomboy-ish Anjali (Kajol), who is hopelessly in love with Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) flees college when she learns that he is in love with Tina (Rani Mukherjee).  The movie then cuts to the future in which Rahul has lost his wife Tina in a tragic death and as fate would have it, he meets his old best friend, Anjali.  Only, she isn’t quite the tomboy any more.

Made of Honor

Everybody loves Patrick Dempsey for the charm he exudes in every one of his movies, this one in particular.  You hate him for not having noticed what’s right in front of him for years but you also simultaneously feel sorry for him, when the love of his life brings back a Scottish hunk to whom she decides to get married.

13 Going on 30

In this part-fantasy, part-romcom flick, we find Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner) waking up one day as a 30-year-old woman with a 13-year-old’s heart.  To evade the tribulations of an adolescent life, Jenna’s wish to magically delve into adulthood comes true and it only takes her seventeen years to realize that she is in love with her childhood nerdy best friend, Matty (Mark Ruffalo).

Jab We Met

Circumstances lead Geet (Kareena Kapoor) and Aditya (Shahid Kapur), two complete strangers to meet and travel together.  Carrying baggages that are poles apart, one who is set to elope with her boyfriend and another who is in disdain considering that the love of his life got married to another man, the movie gently takes us through a rather funny and light-hearted narrative of how both of them finally discover their love for each other.
Image courtesy of jqgill via Creative Commons.
Editor’s note:
The portrayal of love in Indian movies tend to come under the scrutiny of critics.  Read: How Love Blossoms in Indian Movies.

 

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About the author

Vijetha Rangabashyam

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