This newsletter started, as many often do, with a recommendation request. A group chat buzzed with the news that one participant needed something to watch that could help cure a rotten day. The query had me mulling for quite a bit.
Some of you longtime readers of my work on Substack may be thinking right about now, “Marshall, didn’t you literally write an entire newsletter devoted to this topic during COVID for a whole year?” (Don’t subscribe to it; I’ll never publish on it again!)
But when you survey the full list of films (collected here for your convenience on Letterboxd), I wouldn’t say that any of these are guaranteed good times. Every film had its particular take on empathy, and by the end, I was honestly straining a bit to find a new movie every single day. So I thought about it further and came up with a further tier of films, one more concerned with viewers feeling better about themselves than the world.
Because I am prone to take things like this way too seriously, I devised a set of rules for this list in conjunction with its original requestor. We wanted films that were not just simple “nicecore” entertainment that felt naïve about the world without really dwelling too heavily on persevering through painful problems. (Sorry, friends, I just cannot summon your enthusiasm for Paddington 2.)
RULES:
No major character (or animal!) faces death, significant trauma, or prolonged sadness
Outlook is one of overall positivity, but this is achieved through neither ignoring nor battling the existence of real pain
Films have conflict, of course, but the stakes are generally low and do not involve the use of violence or other forms of physical intimidation
A happy ending can create winners and losers, but the losers do not end the film entirely vanquished or humiliated
Self-loathing has to be played for comedy, not pathos
Another note: you may find that the list skews a bit older because, well, I’d argue since the ‘60s film has gotten trapped in an ouroboros of irony. So if you want to watch more classic cinema and feel generally better, this is a list for you.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Marshall and the Movies to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.