An Affair to Remember

This film has to be probably the best romantic film I've ever seen, even above Gone With The Wind, but on the same level as The English Patient (my favorite film of all time). I got intrigued by this film back in high school when my sister dragged me to see Sleepless in Seattle. I caught the references to this film that Meg Ryan made throughout that film and thought that I'd like to rent this film (Affair to Remember) to see what the commotion was about. Needless to say, with the whole "shipboard romance" aspect of it, and the promise to meet again in six months atop the Empire State Building of all places, I quickly became hooked. The scene on the French Riviera with Nickie's grandmother playing the piano, oh God is it beautiful! Cary Grant is so debonair and suave and Deborah Kerr is so ravishing and stunningly beautiful, that it always demands repeated viewing from me (at least three times a year). Seeing this film always makes me wonder if something like the kind of relationship that Nickie had with Terry in the film would really be possible. Would and could someone actually leave the person they were engaged to to marry a complete and total stranger that they just met days ago? I'd like to think that it could, but then I am nothing but a hopeless romantic. The final scene always tears my heart out, no matter how many times I've seen it, I'm always sobbing. Watching this film around Valentine's Day (even if you are single) is always a treat. It allows our fantasies to take flight so that we may think that we are actually the one meeting our beloved atop the Empire State Building in a thunderstorm. Watch with a box of Kleenex nearby. My rating: 4 stars