The Five Best Chick Flicks Of All Time

BY CAMILA SOSA

Every once in a while we all just need a little cheering up or, in some cases, a reason to just let the tears run. This is where chick flicks come in. Generally targeted for women and almost exclusively about romance, chick flicks can easily turn into vapid products with formulaic plots and weak, cliché characters. However at their best, chick flicks can lift our spirits, let our real emotions out, and even influence female empowerment. Distinguishing one type of film from the other is actually really difficult and let’s be honest, nothing stinks more than picking out the wrong chick flick.  Here are a few that won’t let you down.

5. 10 Things I Hate About You

Loosely based on Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew,” 10 Things I Hate About You initially looked like it would fall into the lovey-dovey category, recycling a boring plot (boy is bribed to ask out girl, ends up falling in love with her just when she finds out about the bribe) that’s supposed to cause drama but fails. So how exactly did the movie move past this? The actors.

You don’t get actors any more charming than Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Heath Ledger. And let’s not forget Julia Stiles, whose tough girl performance, balances out the film’s cheesy scenes (like when the whole school band serenade for her). The story follows Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynik) and Katarina (Julia Stiles), two sisters who are polar opposites. Bianca is a popular teen who embraces her girly side and Katarina is the unpopular older sister who is much more interested in literature than in boys. This causes problems for Bianca, who is asked to prom by two different guys, but can’t go because her father forbids her from going unless her older sister gets asked out too. The two lover boys then persuade Patrick (Heath Ledger), school rebel, to ask Kat to the prom. He takes a $300 bribe, but after awhile he realizes that he genuinely likes her. By the end of the film I found myself more in love with Kat and Patrick than they were with one another.

4. The Notebook

I’ll admit it, I went into this movie thinking I had some kind of superior taste in films and that “I wasn’t like other girls”. I highly doubted that I’d be able to watch The Notebook without puking. About 30 minutes into the movie, I was already in tears. Maybe I’m not so different after all…. or maybe this movie is just that good.

Allie Nelson (Rachel McAdams) and Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) are two young lovers who face a number of obstacles while falling in love with one another. Noah is a middle class boy who works at a sawmill, and Rachel is a rich girl, whose snobby parents are highly critical of their relationship.

The Notebook cuts between their experiences as young lovers and as an old couple. The older Rachel suffers from Alzheimer’s and Noah attempts to keep their love alive by retelling their stories. Just when you think you’ve cried your eyes out there is an even sadder scene. Yes, it goes a little over board with scenes that include kissing under the rain, and lines like the oh so famous “I want all of you, forever, every day.” But I’m not afraid to say that I would one day like to experience a love like this, as do all of us.

3. Clueless

Cher, played by Alicia Silverstone, is a social queen who’s always fashionably up to date, and incredibly sassy. But Cher’s character overrides the stereotypical “popular girl” that so often is shown turning girls against each other in chick flicks. Cher is generally a good girl attempting to help those around her in any way possible, like matchmaking her professors and putting new girl Tai (Brittany Murphy) under her wing; however, this doesn’t stop her from drowning in a superficial lifestyle. A personal revelation comes in the form of her ex-stepbrother, a young Paul Rudd, who teases her constantly for her shallow personality. Clueless has the perfect ingredients for a good romance film sparkle of romance a bit of humor/satire and a whole lot of memorable one-liners.

2. Breakfast At Tiffany’s

Made in 1961, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is a chick flick classic.  Even by today’s standard, the film is well made. Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) is a woman that despite all her physical beauty lives a rather flawed life.  Basically, she dresses up in high heels, a dress and pearls only to end up in front of Tiffany and Co. nibbling pastries and sipping coffee. She meets up with a mobster to give him a “weather report” and eventually heads back home to find out she has forgotten her keys, which almost always leads to some chaotic altercation between her and her landlord.

Her search for a rich man has left her surrounded by “rats and super rats” and a pessimistic view on relationships. This view is however challenged by her new neighbor, Paul Varjak. At the surface, Breakfast at Tiffany’s looks a lot like a basic romance storyline but the important thing about this movie are in the details. Holly rejects any kind of bond with anyone. She lives in a practically bare apartment with a cat she refuses to name because unpacking and naming her cat would be too much of a commitment. In the apartment above her, Paul struggles to write his next book and is maintained by a wealthy woman (his decorator.) Their messy lives draw them together. They are unaware of how in love they are with one another as Holly continues to pursue millionaires and Paul has a fling with his so-called decorator. On a day together, Paul and Holly do things they’ve never done, which involve petty theft and disturbing a library to have Paul autograph his own book. These scenes only add to their cute innocent relationship and win the film a spot as an all-time classic.

1.500 Days Of Summer

Here’s a chick flick that isn’t necessarily centered on a woman.  While many people, (I think) might be hesitant to categorize it as such, it remains on my list because of the fact that it broke so many female stereotypes. The film is narrated by Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt), a hopeless romantic who falls for Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel). The two are seemingly soul mates; they like the same music and films and they see the whole world in a similar view. The problem is that Summer doesn’t believe in love. Seeing some kind of trend here? I’m just always glad to see, that for a change, it isn’t the female who is so desperate for love.

The gender roles are completely switched, Tom becomes determined to change Summer’s mind despite her constant reminder that “they are just friends.” Over the course of 500 days, we see Tom become the irrational, sad puppy that is so often portrayed by a female lead.

500 Days Of Summer exposes the nature of love like nothing else before it. It completely mixes things up making it not only my favorite chick flick but also one of my favorite films of all time.