Romance and romantic comedies in any light are affairs of the heart. So many great films have portrayed that great and elusive thing called “true love.”

Looking around my film library I found that I have quite a bit for those “sappy, the boy gets the girl, happily ever-after story” films.

I could not believe it at first. It is not everyday that a man admits that he has a very soft side…certainly not when he’s hanging with the guys. But since no one is looking, what the heck!

Perhaps the most prolific love story of all time is that one that takes your heart and wrestles it to the ground after it puts in the blender on high. We’ve seen Somewhere in Time, West Side Story, Robin Hood, and An Affair To Remember. We’ve all been there, although some will not admit it openly. I have the unique circumstance that I grew up into the genre because I was blessed with three little girls. Sure they dragged me to see Two Weeks Notice and Cinderella Story but soon I was offering to rent those films to watch at home. Yes it is true!

So what is it? Does this mean that we are all romantics and just don’t want to own up to it? Is it that we all yearn to have those happy endings in our own lives? is it that we are all sappy shmucks inside and just don’t know it…of course I’m referring to us guys. You ladies out there are already honest enough about your feelings…maybe too much. Sorry, could not help that one!

So, I watch films like Casablanca and let’s be honest here …Boggie is not a chick magnet, he was actually quite a short dude, but he’s got that intangible trait that made him the leading man that he was. So what was it?

Gone With The Wind is another timeless classic…what woman would not fall for Clark Gable, I mean really.. the guy could hang with Clooney, Pitt, and another present leading man. The women were equally stunning in the like of Katharine and Audrey Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Lauren Bacall, and Maureen O’Hara….wow, can you say babe?

But really, having great and attractive cast is not the answer. It involves having a compelling story that has a strain of impossibility, a feeling that there is a time limit, that doom is in store for one or both parties. How do I know this…I look inside of me…this is what I have learned and experienced.

Love in this instance is a space where there is a lack of “love.” Is it that way for us in our life? Is this why people relate so much to this type of story? Is it because we have a lack of love in our life, one that is not satisfied and perhaps never will be?

I don’t have any of these answers…. each one of us has to answer those questions by looking inward and seeing what is left to be filled in our own hearts. The challenge here is to fill from within…to look for that essential thing that can only come from inside us. Would these love stories look different to us if we had that void filled?
So, next time you decide to write a love story, look inward or just forget it!

Do what you love!

Fernando