MONDAY MUSINGS - ROMANCES WITHOUT A "HAPPILY-EVER-AFTER" ENDING

Once before I posted a list of favorite film love stories. This time I decided to include film romances that didn't end with a “happily-ever-after.” That's always quoted as one of the requisites for a true romance story, that in the end the hero and heroine ride off into the sunset together. But love is larger than that, as the stories listed below show.

I've eliminated those with a "Romeo & Juliet" trope, where one or both of the star-crossed lovers dies in the end, thus preventing them from physically being together. Here is a list of a few that fit the remaining condition: the two lovers live on—just not together. 

Roman Holiday - a classic black and white 1953 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck as a princess and a news reporter enjoying a fabulous day in Rome and falling in love along the way. But in the end, duty calls, and she must return to her royal life, while he remains in his more mundane role as a reporter. Their love will never be forgotten even though it remains forever unfulfilled. 

Bridges of Madison County - Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood play an Illinois farmer's wife and a National Geographic photographer whose four-day love affair is sparked by a chance meeting while her family is away. In the end, though, they must go their separate ways, leaving behind memories of a once-in-a-lifetime encounter, one neither will ever forget.

Casablanca - Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman play the iconic couple, sharing a love that can never be completed during World War II in Casablanca. Their history ignited the blazing love between them that neither can allow to burn brightly, but is never quite extinguished. In the end, both do the right thing, which unfortunately means remaining apart. At least “they’ll always have Paris.”

Castaway - Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt are the lovers whom fate rips apart by a plane crash, casting away the hero on a remote island alone for years. When he's finally rescued and they reunite, they find nothing is the same for them no matter how much they want it to be.

All of these stories share one thing. In the end, the hero and heroine “do the right thing,” even if it means they can’t be together. That takes a special kind of love. It’s not one I’m interested in writing about, but it’s something to admire all the same.