Thursday Movie Picks (Romantic Tropes Edition): Travel Romance

 

For the fifth week of the Thursday Movie Picks series hosted by Wanderer of Wandering Through the Shelves as the month of February focuses on romantic tropes. We go into the subject of travel romance where people go to a different place to find love as it is a common trope but one that is fun. Here are my three picks:

1. The Sheltering Sky

Based on the novel by Paul Nowles, Bernardo Bertolucci’s adaptation is one of his weaker films although it does have a lot of the elements that made his films work such as Vittorio Storaro’s photography and noteworthy performances from its ensemble as it is about a couple in late 1940s North Africa traveling as they try to save their marriage as they deal with temptation and existentialism. It is a flawed film largely due to how dense the source material is yet it is still worth watching for the leading performances of John Malkovich and Debra Winger.

2. Paris Can Wait

From Eleanor Coppola is a film that revolves around an American woman traveling in France as she joins another traveler to discover the country while her producer husband remains at Cannes for its film festival before he rejoins her in Paris. Starring Diane Lane as this woman who travels with Arnaud Viard where she gets a closer look at the small towns and culture of the country as she falls for the journey as it is a gem worth seeking out not just its simple story told with such elegance by Coppola but also for Lane’s performance.

3. Bones and All

Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’ novel about a young woman with cannibalistic tendencies who meets another young cannibal as they travel all across America to find her mother. It is a film that is this unconventional love story set on the road in 1980s America as it features not just great leading performances from Taylor Russell and Timothee Chalamet but a tremendous supporting performance from Mark Rylance that is just scary to watch as he plays a fellow cannibal. It is not a film for everyone but certainly worth checking out.

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