Six pairs of movie characters who should have ended up together but were kept apart
Pretty in Pink: Andie and Duckie — John Hughes’ 1986 coming-of-age classic features Andie, her douchey crush Blane and her best friend Duckie, who is helplessly in love with her. Near the end of the film, Blane, in his infinite charm, doesn’t take Andie to the prom, yet she still runs to him and his cool car in the end, leaving Duckie forever to be the physical embodiment of the friend zone.
(500) Days of Summer: Summer and Tom — Quirky as she may be, Zooey Deschanel’s character in this delightful 2009 rom-com is a perfect match for Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Tom. While their courtship is instrumental in the film’s message about imperfections and opening up to those that you love, seeing them end up together would have been nice, if only because their IKEA dates are so wildly entertaining.
Annie Hall: Alvy and Annie — Woody Allen’s 1977 classic does not have a storybook ending because life doesn’t either. But this duo’s awkward chemistry was enough to make viewers believe the two deserve to stick with it. This kind of ending would assure the audience that opposites do attract and that attraction lasts.
Lost in Translation: Charlotte and Bob — Bill Murray landing Scarlett Johansson? Sounds unlikely. But by the end of this film, you can’t help but root for Murray’s aging actor and Johansson’s forlorn housewife to get together. Instead, we get a whisper and a smile. Oh, well.
Pygmalion/My Fair Lady: Henry Higgins and Eliza — Sure, Higgins is a snobby phonetics professor, and Eliza is and always will be a flower girl, but the end of George Bernard Shaw’s fantastic play (and the subsequent movies) is too tension-filled to end without them getting together. It’s just cruel.
The Graduate: Ben Braddock and Mrs. Robinson — I can’t be the only person rooting for the cougar in this one, right? Cougars deserve love, too. (This photo is from a theatrical version.)
