Illustration by Sarah Farquhar
The line between bravery and stupidity is never more tenuous than when asking someone out on a date. The movies, that dark sacred temple of make-believe and romance, have always been my promised land, a place I could squire away someone I like, a place we can escape from our life and journey to someplace magic – which, isn’t that what starting a relationship is? From Top Gun to Licorice Pizza, I float the incentive of buying my companion a root beer to increase my chances of getting to yes.
I was concerned when the younger woman with saucer-shaped eyes told me that, the night before our second date, she’d gone to “ecstatic dance,” releasing herself from her conscious mind to crescendoing hours of rhythm and drums. This is a woman who doesn’t own a shirt from the Gap.
My proposal, of course, was a movie – Song Sung Blue, about a Neil Diamond “interpreter,” no less. I worried I was taking a cool kid to an old-age home, but not enough to sacrifice my dream. But here’s the thing: the movie transports you, and when the second act kicked in, I could feel her respond to each beat. She nodded her head as if I Am … I Said mattered, and when Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman enacted the heartbreak and thrill of compassionate love, I saw a tear fall from her eye.
Movie theatres are under fire from streamers. Paramount and Netflix want Warner Bros. to keep people at home and the very act of bingeing represents how disposable they think magic is.
Why would anyone want to kill the movies?
Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman in Song Sung Blue.Sarah Shatz/The Associated Press
Conglomerates and vertical integration are about as sexy as algorithms and AI. In real life, there’s nothing like a first date at the movies. The physical proximity in a place outside the home and shared emotional voyage of characters that, if you squint, represent us all. When I got divorced in 2022, all I could dream of was someone reaching into my bag of popcorn (my dad thought I should aim higher, but heaven is letting your guard down for the first time).
Cinemas – destinations requiring planning and choice – are a gateway to intimacy and connection. It’s a risk asking someone to the movies, a way in the dark to show someone you like what you can’t quite come out and say: This is my taste. These are my values. This makes me laugh, or cry. This means something to me – and I want to share it with you.
I took my first date to the movies, and the first girl I loved to the movies, too. Julia was in ninth grade and I was in tenth and the film was Jacob’s Ladder and while I didn’t have the guts to sit in the back row – that was for seniors – we sat dead centre, surrounded by people shrieking, and I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. I’ve taken first dates to the Blair Witch Project and, in college, Leaving Las Vegas, an experience I amplified by making a postdate mixed tape with dialogue snippets from the Sting-heavy soundtrack of the Mike Figgis film.
My daughter’s 14 and she goes to the movies with friends. They saw Anaconda on a snow day and danced in the aisles to the Taylor Swift film. She’s yet to cross the threshold to dating, but she’s on the cusp. I can’t imagine a world in which the movie-going experience disappears from romance. What do we lose about love when we lose the movies? A neutral ground in neighbourhoods all over directed to help people feel: Annie Hall, 500 (Days of Summer), Forrest Gump, The Graduate, Hamnet, Harold and Maude, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hitch, Juno, Mile End Kicks, Moonlight, Moonstruck, The Notebook, Paying for It, Saltburn, Titanic, When Harry Met Sally ...
Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project.Artisan Entertainment via AP
You know the score: the asker-outer paying for Twizzlers. The kids hoping they don’t run into anyone they know. The divorced dad praying he’s not making a fool of himself, and afterward, the eye contact, breaking the silence – you just experienced something, together.
I’m quiet for a bit after the movies. What did you think? Would you like to get something to eat?
In Greece, my future wife and I went to the movies when we missed home and, after COVID, when I fell in love again after my divorce, we saw Babylon at the Varsity, shocking the waiter in VIP when we each ordered a bottle of red wine (in our defence, the movie’s three hours). Less commitment than a concert, more memorable than a burger, easier than spending hours at a museum, the movies are a generator of possibilities, with the odds tilted toward a kiss goodnight.
The first time I went on a Bumble date we saw Bodies Bodies Bodies and the last time I tried Bumble, we saw Sorry, Baby (all this time, maybe I’m picking the wrong films).
Lee Pace and Pete Davidson in Bodies Bodies Bodies.A24
At Song Sung Blue, there was a moment I touched my date’s leg, briefly, as I thought about holding her hand. Something happened onscreen. Kate and Hugh emerged from their gloom, the score swelled: once again they were going to belt out Neil Diamond! Love’s durability got me, and I thought it might be transferable … but she didn’t budge.
I looked at her and retreated, like I’ve done since the Take My Breath Away makeout scene in Top Gun. Despite going to the movies for 35 years, I’ve never made out at a film.
Like the end of the movie, the end of a night is a mystery. Especially now when I don’t need a ride home from my mom. But what shouldn’t hang in the balance is the survival of cinemas, because young lovers need places to go (and no matter our age, we’re all babies in the face of those butterflies).
Romance, like actors and dream worlds, deserves to be larger-than-life.
We need the multiplex not just for our children, but for their children, too. For everyone to face the edge of their nerve: Do you venture an arm around the shoulder? At Song Sung Blue, as the credits played, it was clear that my date and I would not be seeing another movie.
But say a prayer for the cinema, and this Valentine’s Day, never forget about love. Recently, I met someone with a heart as big as an Imax who lives life in Dolby stereo. When the lights go down on our first movie, I’m going to try holding her hand.
Special to The Globe and Mail