Romancefilms often use on-screen couples to play on tropes that idolize a perfect vision of relationships we should all aspire to. They often include exaggerated gestures of love, compassion, and loyalty that make us root for the couple in question to stay together and live happily ever after, no matter what obstacles they face. However, anyone who's been in any kind of serious relationship in their adult lives will tell you that real-life love is rarely ever that romantic or simplistic.
Many people may know the darker and often more realistic side of relationships, and just how many different ways a union of two people sharing a romantic interest in each other can soon go awry. Luckily, movies are cognizant of this fact too, and as a result of it, for better or worse, some movies brilliantly depict just how complex, upsetting, or even dangerous relationships can be when they don't make sense or end up being toxic and unhealthy for one partner, or even both. By paying homage to movies that played the anti-relationship angle well, here's a look at the worst couples in movie history.
10 Jane and John in Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Brad Pitt and Angelina's 2005 hit film, Mr. and Mrs Smith, will always be remembered for its behind-the-scenes couples drama since heralded the start of 'Brangelina." It also caused the unceremonious end of Pitt's marriage to ex-wife, Jennifer Aniston. In hindsight, the film was perhaps a little prophetic since Pitt and Jolie began parting ways themselves in 2019. It's all a little ironic then that in the film that first brought them together, they played a bored husband and wife who later learn that they are both assassins for rival agencies.
They also find out that their latest assignments are to kill each other. In an epic fight scene, the pair physically attack each other, using punches, kicks, and everything else they can to duke it out. As a couple, these two took violence to insane levels, but still manage to find some real passion through it all.
9 Anna and Larry in Closer
As a viewing experience, the 2004 critically acclaimed drama Closer was a brilliant and uncomfortably intense ride. The film centers around two intermingling couples as all partners involved display some stunningly depraved and selfish behavior. Their actions end up pushing everyone involved away from their respective partners and nobody comes out smelling like roses among them.
The film was hailed for its rawness at times as the couples betray each other and have some epic (but brilliantly acted) argument scenes. Although Alice (Natalie Portman) and Daniel (Jude Law) aren't much better, Anna (Julia Roberts) and Larry (Clive Owen) ultimately get our vote for the more toxic of the two couples. Infidelity is but just a footnote in the laundry list of relational infractions these two meter out against each other in a film that was a startling insight into just how toxic and messy some relationships can be.
8 Brook and Gary in The Break-Up
The film's title should say it all since The Break-Up, starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughan, was a film that centered around how a toxic couple end their relationship. The movie, although largely comedic, had some pronounced dramatic and even tragic overtones to it.
Despite starting off as a seemingly happy and committed couple, unspoken resentments ultimately send them hurtling down a path of irreconcilable differences. What follows is a contest of sorts to see who can emotionally hurt the other the most, with a fair degree of pride and immaturity driving all the shenanigans. The way this couple disintegrates ends up being kind of sad, since underneath all the hostility that ensues between them, they do both care deeply for each other.
7 Annette and Sebastian in Cruel Intentions
A dark young adult cult classic from the '90s, Cruel Intentions was a disturbing film in some ways. It displayed the unconscionable actions of rich kids who are so spoiled, their narcissistic traits turn them into full-on sociopaths who think rules don't apply to them. At the center of it are a pair of twisted half-siblings whose penchant for sexual deviancy lead to a wager over whether the brother, Sebastian, can seduce the virginal daughter (Annette) of their private school's new Headmaster.
Sebastian uses his charms, looks, and a lot of dishonesty to start a relationship with Annette with the intention of seducing her, so they can knock the halo of her famously chastity-preaching head. While the twisted games and plots also make for some compelling subplots too, the main plot revolves around how Sebastian inadvertently ends up falling for Annette. However, his crisis of conscience and newfangled sincere feelings for her are too late to stop the chain reaction that ultimately leads to tragedy. A great film with a killer soundtrack, Cruel Intentions was a lesson in what not to do in a relationship.
6 The Narrator and Marla in Fight Club
To this day, Fight Club, remains a beloved cult classic that's packed with brilliant and highly quotable dialogue amid a dark and gritty style. While the plot revolves around the two main characters (played by Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, who were both exceptional in the film), an initially nauseating, but ultimately and weirdly romantic subplot commences between Edward Norton's character and a woman named Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter).
One of them is callous, dishonest, and suicidally depressed, while the other is probably a person suffering from schizophrenia or some form of severe dissociative personality disorder. The result is an unlikely couple that spend frantically passionate and raucous nights together, only for Marla to be viciously kicked out the next morning, her partner claiming to have no idea what she's doing at his home. If none of this makes sense, you'd probably have to watch the film to know why the compelling plot twist at its end brings everything else into sharper focus.
5 Hermione and Ron in Harry Potter
This one will probably draw the ire of many a Potter fan, but it needs to be said. The three main characters from the globally popular Harry Potter franchise are adored by millions of people around the world. However, as the original books and films develop, many fans couldn't help but feel that the chief love interest from it never made any sense. On the one hand, there's Hermione Granger, the brilliant, loyal, sweet, and nerdy girl who proves she can also be the belle of the ball when she wants to.
Rather than make Hermione and the franchise's main character, Harry Potter himself, fall in love and become an item, the novels' author, J.K Rowling, chose to match her up with the other best friend, Ron Weasley. In comparison to Hermione, Ron is often impetuous, boorish, slothful, and deliberately nasty at times. For most of the books, Ron and Hermione are virtual opposites, but suddenly develop a love interest and even end up married with children at the conclusion of the epic tale. If there were ever seminal words that define the term "incompatible couple," "Hermione and Ron" would be those words.
4 Michael and Kit in Spoiler Alert
Not all couples on this list make it here because they are toxic or horrible people. Some movie couples are just bad because of how frustratingly tragic their love stories become. In the Jim Parsons led film, Spoiler Alert, Michael and Kit are a same-sex couple whose love story starts of being incredibly inspiring and romantic, while immediately letting you know that it's not a happy story.
They may be opposites in some ways but complement each other well, and seemingly make each other so happy. Yet, by the second half of the film, we find that this previously idyllic pair have devolved into a relationship torn apart by infidelity and stubbornness. If that's not sad enough, by the time they both actually realize just how much they love each other, one is afflicted with a deadly illness, while the other has to watch him slowly and painfully waste away.
3 Bella and Edward in Twilight
Bella and Edward from the Twilightfranchise may have a global base of adoring fans, but that doesn't always stop them from being one of the most toxic and nauseating couples in movie history at times. The pair, who include a vampire and the girl he loves, but longs to kill, also set some atrocious standards for teen and young adult moviegoers, who make up the key demographic of their fans. Chief among these unhealthy traits that define large tracts of Bella and Edward's relationship is that they reinforce bad choices.
Firstly, they romanticize the notion that it's okay for young girls to become obsessively in love with men who are dangerous for them, so long as they find the guy devastatingly handsome. When Edward breaks up with her in New Moon, Bella also falls into a deep depression, becomes suicidal, and even deliberately risks her own life just to get a glimpse of Edward. When that doesn't help, she goes running into the arms of another man who she knows nurses feelings for her, just to drop the second guy like a bad habit the minute Edward is back in the picture.
2 Amy and Nick in Gone Girl
The commercially successful and highly acclaimed psychological thriller, Gone Girl, was a movie that took toxic relationships to egomaniacally extreme levels. The couple from the film are played by Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, who both ably portrayed their characters, Amy and Nick's, darkest traits.
Amy has valid reason to be disgruntled and hurt by Nick since he does steps out on her. However, her response was disturbing to say the least as she meticulously plots every step of her revenge. That plot involves faking her own kidnapping and apparent murder at Nick's hands as a way of getting back at him and destroying his life. Revenge is a dish best served cold doesn't begin to describe how frosty this couple's relationship gets by the film's end.
1 R and J in Romeo + Juliet
In some ways Romeo and Juliet, in its various cinematic adaptations, is the tale of one of the most famous love stories in history. On the other hand, it probably defines the term "Shakespearian tragedy," since the film versions are based on what is typically thought to be one of the Bard's most gut-wrenching plays.
While the pair of star-crossed lovers do experience an intense love story that has gotten many a romance fan's hearts racing over the centuries, it is also a tale of a couple so bad for each other, they literally wind up causing each other's death. That's in addition to the fact that their forbidden love reignites an already fractious feud between their families. For sheer bad choices that lead to bad consequences, there's a reason why these two are known as star-crossed lovers.
Their youthful overzealousness also doesn't make for a particularly good example for young lovers to follow, no matter how legendary and romantic their love may seem, and it's on the most cringe display in the 1996 film Romeo + Juliet. The words of Juliet herself pretty much sums up the kind of naive impulsivity that defines them both.
"Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn by my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet"
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