Merrily We Go to Hell

Seems a farce to call this romantic or anything like that but there’s enough witty banter and clever looks and glances that you could almost be tricked. A romantic melodrama built on a foundation of bitter cynicism. One that shows you the real deal about the twisted and brutal nature of love with someone who wants to love you but is pinned down by addictions. Where the appearances can be charming and happy to onlookers but every other syllable is laced with hurt. Laced with a fakery. It’s about wanting to believe in a love that might never have truly existed. There doesn’t need to be the addictions for that to ring true for so many of us. The patience and the let down. The promise and the heartbreak. Even in the end when it seems like they’ve come around finally it comes at the most painful cost imaginable and even if this time they’ve truly turned it around what’s to say this love is what is meant to be? So bitterly melodramatic maybe not the same ends met but so similar to the melancholy of A Farewell to Arms. Images here will be stuck with me for a long time Sylvia Sydney’s expressive face sells every scenes the back and forth of emotional tenors.