A broken heart can feel just as real as any other injury, and sometimes the only remedy is a few days in bed watching movies. Not just any movies, though. While watching Dirty Dancing and bawling her eyes out worked for Jess on New Girl, overloading ourselves with happy couples isn’t necessarily helpful for the rest of us.
These 5 movies are the perfect distraction from reality, and relationships in general, to submerge yourself in while you recover from your broken heart.
Okay, this one is a little bit about relationships, but if you haven’t seen this Emma Stone classic, it goes in a different direction than any other teen movie about sex and love.
High schooler Olive Pendergast takes pity on a gay classmate and pretends to have sex with him, restoring his manhood and popularity in the eyes of their peers. Other bullied students at Olive’s school begin asking her to fake a sexual encounter with them to boost their reputation.
Olive makes a business out of this, accepting money in exchange for allowing kids to claim they had sex with her. However, while her patrons’ reputations soar, Olive’s begins to plummet as the rest of her school believes she’s actually having sex for money.
This movie is a hilarious and raw take on the superficial nature of high school, popularity, sex, and relationships. Olive’s struggles reveal how problematic guys and relationships can be in a way that’s way too relatable.
When you have a broken heart it’s easy to feel like you’re the only one in the world not in a healthy and magical relationship, but this movie will let you know that you could not be less alone.
A funny, wholesome family movie is exactly what you need after a broken heart to remind you how many other awesome people you have in your life.
This indie flick featuring Steve Carrell follows a dysfunctional family as they race across state borders to get their young daughter to her beauty pageant.
Every member of the family has their own priorities and problems that come to light on the road, but they all come together to support young Olive’s dream of being a beauty queen.
Angsty teen Dwayne has taken a vow of silence until he can accomplish his dream of flying planes in the Air Force, dad Richard is trying fruitlessly to make it as a motivational speaker, while mom Sheryl simply wants to hold her family together and see everyone happy again.
Meanwhile, hyper-intelligent uncle Frank was recently released from the hospital after a failed suicide attempt, and grandpa Edwin is simply along for the ride, coasting through old age with no filter whatsoever.
Equal doses of hilarity and poignant emotional moments ensue when all of these characters are crammed in a barely functional VW bus, and we see the true strength of family bonds.
The only relationship this movie gives us is the tension between Richard and Sheryl, but with a range of age, dreams, and struggles of the characters, at least one of them is bound to be surprisingly relatable.
After a broken heart, this lighthearted, family-centric movie is exactly what you need to highlight the importance of all the other types of relationships in your life.
Nothing takes your mind off of romance like a 1980 all-boys boarding school.
If you’re tired of reliving the breakup, but aren’t quite done wallowing yet, this movie will definitely give you a good cry.
Robin Williams stars as a passionate English teacher who sparks an interest in the subject in all his students, particularly young Neil Perry who is inspired to defy his strict and powerful father in pursuit of an acting career.
This movie speaks to the power of friendship and will leave you nostalgic for all the best teachers you had in high school. It’ll also leave you ready to start writing poetry and reading Shakespeare- another activity that can help you process all your lingering emotions from your breakup.
There’s really nothing to take your mind off of romance like a bunch of extinct animals protecting an infant.
This movie is an underrated classic of all of our childhoods and it still holds up in adulthood. This movie was actually originally pitched as a drama, not as a children’s movie, and while that (probably rightly) wasn’t the approach they went with, some of the deeper themes still made it through.
The light and fun physical comedy in this movie, mixed in with the dry humor of Manny and Diego, is a great throwback to a simpler time in our lives, back before we even knew what a broken heart was.
The movie can also be surprisingly relevant as the odd grouping of a wooly mammoth, saber-toothed tiger, sloth, and human baby doesn’t go uncommented on. The group comes to rely on each other, and even though they’re judged by the other animals they encounter, they ultimately decide that they’re a family, or- in ice age animal ling0- a herd.
While this movie is made for tiny kids, sometimes remembering that humor and simplicity of everyday life are exactly what we need in our saddest adult moments. Family doesn’t always mean easy, unproblematic relationships; sometimes family comes together by accident, and it doesn’t look anything like you thought it would.
It’s hard when you’re still heartbroken, but allow yourself to think like a kid for a bit, and remember you never know when your herd will come along.
This one’s also a little bit about relationships, but in a way that’s guaranteed to make you smile.
A-list older actors star in this hugely fun action-comedy. Retired, extremely dangerous (RED) Bruce Willis is sucked back into his old world of secret government work and is reunited with old friends, but to his dismay, his innocent and unsuspecting girlfriend is pulled in with him. Luckily, she is nothing but thrilled with all the action.
All of the now-retired agents have hilariously sarcastic and unconcerned comments about the work they’re clearly used to but have now outgrown. Despite their age, their cynicism is the only thing that’s taken a hit; they all still kick ass like nobody’s business.
Even though things aren’t working out in the love department right now, we can all hold out hope that by the time we’re retirees our life might be this fun and exciting, and we’ll have a significant other to take along for the ride.
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