Big-Screen Love

MUST YOU AND YOUR MATE AGREE ON MOVIE ROMANCE FOR REAL

'What's your favorite movie love scene?” The man I'm dating asked me this question last month as we were standing in line at the Sundance Film Festival waiting to see Love Comes Lately, a movie about the love life of an 80-yearold bachelor based on short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer. There were good movies to see at Sundance, lots of them. But what interested me most were the love stories. I'm a sucker for big-screen love.

Favorite movie love scene? It's one of those litmus- test kinds of questions worth asking in a relationship.

It's a window into the other person's romantic imagination – and view of life and love. From The African Queen to The Princess Bride, tales of love are a perennial draw. But what makes for really satisfying big-screen love? Is it schmaltz? Sex? A stunning star? Or hilarious one? “Favorite movie love scene” isn't on the list of questions you're asked to fill out on the online dating sites when you describe yourself and what you're looking for.

(Or I'd know my friend's favorite love scene and he'd know mine, since that's how we met.) But maybe it should be, because it tells you a lot about another person. Ideally, you want someone whose fantasies mesh with yours.

Asking me “What's your favorite movie love scene?” is like asking “What's your favorite food?” It depends on what you're in the mood for. Sometimes you hunger for something special – for your knight in shining armor to look all movie-star perfect.

Like Colin Firth. Other times, you want comfort food – a man who's imperfect and real and who lets you see the kinks in his armor. Say Billy Crystal. Every so often you want to indulge in forbidden fruit – big-screen love with a bad boy.

So I tell him my favorite love scenes: the one where Hugh Grant declares his love to Emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility; Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan at the New Year's party at the end of When Harry Met Sally; the Paris scene in Something's Gotta Give, when Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton come together for good; the passionate beach scene in The Thornbirds; Barbara Hershey's deathbed scene in Beaches, a love story between best friends. That counts, doesn't it?

Then I pose the question back to my friend. I don't have much of a handle on this man's imagination, so I'm prepared for anything.

Maybe he'll tell me he likes scenes straight out of James Bond, all one-night stands and male fantasy. Maybe he's into weird, erotic Jeremy Irons movies. What if he's all sizzle? Body Heat and movies that make me squirm?

I'm not sure we'll make it to spring if all he likes are movies about infidelity.

Do men even have favorite movie love scenes, I wonder, the way so many women do? Or is it all about hot sex for them? I know some of them must be drawn to big-screen love, because a divorced friend is such a fan of Casablanca that he practically has it memorized.

I know a man who has a soft spot for Sabrina, with A u d r e y Hepburn, w h i c h I a l w a y s thought of as a Golden Girls chick flick. But my friend is 50 and straight.

Now we're at the head of the line and about to go into our movie at Sundance.

And my friend answers:

“The bathtub scene in Big Fish. It's one of my favorite movie love scenes.” I'm not familiar with it.

So later on, when I'm back home and curled up on the couch by myself, I watch the DVD. The scene comes on. I see Albert Finney and Jessica Lange – both pushing late middle age – lying in the bathtub fully clothed, sharing memories of their long married life together.

Finney's dying. There's nothing glamorous. But the scene has all the elements of great big-screen love: schmaltz and wit, lovers' last words, and lots of chemistry. I like my friend's original take on love and realize he may just have passed the litmus test.

He may just be a man after my own movie heart.

Marianne Jacobbi lives in Cambridge. Send comments to coupling@globe.com.