Titanic

I fear that my heart has literally been ripped out of my chest. I had vague ideas of what my review would be like during the first half of the movie, and I'll talk about what I was going to, but holy fuck did I change the direction I wanted my review to go in. Growing up, I had zero interest in ever watching this. In a constant attempt to be different, I rolled my eyes at anything that was popular and was considered a romance. After growing out of that phase, I had lost what little attention span I had to begin with, and figured a three hour movie wasn't the most achievable for me. But then my mom, who usually hates movies, asked me and my sisters if we wanted to watch it, and I'll never reject a movie offer from her. I've always felt like I'd never find romantic love, and that's especially prominent at this point in my life. Yet rather than make me mourn for what I fear I'll never have, I was hopeful that one day I'll meet someone who loves me like Jack loves Rose. The progression of their relationship, while quick, is beautiful. He really does bring joy into her life, starting from the first moment he convinced her not to jump. Everything about their relationship was beautiful, and I was really having a great time watching this. And then I was traumatized. Look. I knew the story of the ship. I knew the general plot of the movie. I did not realize I would cry. It's been a long ass time since a movie made me cry, yet I bawled for pretty much the entire last hour of this. What I really hadn't known was that the sinking of the Titanic wouldn't portray just Rose losing Jack, it showed the whole ship. I felt anxious, sick, and like I was going to vomit. I've seen plenty of horror movies with blood and guts everywhere, but nothing fucked with me as much as Titanic. Seeing the desperation the characters faced was horrible. People hesitate before saving others, bringing up an interesting question of what one would do during a situation like this. The different drownings are horrific, whether it be the woman laying the children down in bed and not even trying to get out, the captain accepting his fate and letting himself drown, or the father who ran the wrong way with his son, you get choked up over characters you didn't even know that well. Of course, not everyone who dies drowns on the ship. People shoot themselves, get shot, jump into the water, freeze, are crushed, and there are probably other ways I'm not thinking of. The desperation everyone feels is portrayed excellently, as they attempt to jump onto the boats, use living humans as flotation devices, and attempt to pay people off to get on boats. I have a million thoughts on this movie, and literally have no idea how to get them all down. Some quick thoughts are I thought it was really important that we saw how the rich were given priority in getting off the ship, I loved Molly, I hated Rose's mom, and at first when I saw Cal grab the little kid I was like "aw he has a single redeeming trait," and then I realized he was only doing it to get on a boat and I was like. Oh. I hesitate to even give this a high rating because it was so upsetting, but it was ultimately brilliant and is the first film I've put in my top four the same day I watched it. I'm convinced all the low ratings are just people who were heartbroken.