It’s striking how often romantic movies end with the couple getting together. Yes, in most cases, this is what the audience is hoping for – another happy ending. Love on the big screen is all about the pursuit, the loss, the combustion, the apology, the reunion, and finally, the big moment where boy gets girl, or girl gets boy, or boy gets boy, or girl gets girl.

In art (as in life, sometimes) committed relationships fall apart. They are boring, dysfunctional, prone to infidelity, unhappiness, deceit, and every kind of perfidy that one can image. But the new relationship – that’s the one that brings out the sparking, best self of the protagonist. At least, until the new relationship becomes old. 

So really, movies end at the beginning. Happiness makes for dull storytelling, so presumably, after the couple wends offscreen to a blissfully bland enternity, there’s nothing more for us to see.

I wonder if we’re all a little preoccupied with beginnings, a little impatient for happiness, ready to feel doubt at the slightest provocation. Falling in love is easy. Staying in love? Might have a lot less to do with romance and a lot more to do with choice – choice to believe in that person, no matter what you feel.

The West Wing, one of the best written shows on television, might even shed a little light on this slippery thing called love. Danny Kincannon knew exactly what he was asking when he posed this question to CJ:

“If I am going to jump off the cliff and you are going to be pushed off the cliff why don’t we hold hands together on the way down?”