OUR list of the tearjerkers that have touched viewers’ hearts.
Miss You Already (2015)
WHEN a film has a title like Miss You Already, you have a fair idea it’s going to require a box of tissues to get through it.
But, as well as making you cry, this story of two lifelong friends whose relationship becomes fractured when one of them contracts cancer also manages to make you laugh as well.
“I commend the writer, Morwenna Banks, for being able to tackle a subject like this the way she has,” says Drew Barrymore.
“It is so difficult to speak about cancer but to handle a subject that is beyond delicate, in a way that is very real and humorous and authentic, really takes someone who is quite beyond brilliant, so I really love Morwenna for that.”
Mum-of-two Drew plays free-spirited Jess in the film, a gardener who lives on a houseboat with her boyfriend, Jago (played by Paddy Considine) and yearns for a child.
The news the she has finally fallen pregnant is tempered by best friend Milly (Toni Collette) receiving a breast cancer diagnosis at the same time.
“The thing that really strikes me about this film is that I’ve seen so many people have to endure this journey,” she adds.
“Also, it speaks of the people who love those people and have had to go on that journey with them and how painful it is for them.
“To not isolate it only to the person who is going through it, but to include their world around them, is so important and so powerful.”
Having just given birth to her second daughter, 40-year-old Drew wasn’t looking for a speedy return to work.
But she flew to Britain at the end of last summer (Cornwall bred Morwenna, the partner of David Baddiel, set her script in London and the Yorkshire Moors) after receiving a personal letter from co-star Collette saying how much she had always wanted to work with her.
The appreciation, as it turned out, was mutual.
“A huge part of why I wanted to do this film, as well as honour the subject matter, was wanting to work with Toni Colette,” says the Charlie’s Angles star.
“Milly, Toni’s character, is much more vivacious and outlandish than Jess who isn’t a career type but has a good head on her shoulders and lives her life the way she wants to.
“Historically, in real life and in the roles I’ve taken on, I’ve been more like the exotic one and it’s really nice to play someone who walks more of a straight line its weirdly ironic and true to my own life now.”
Miss You Already, which opens at cinemas on Friday, is a film with the ability to make you cry, no matter how many times you see it.
As such, it takes its place on our list of Top 10 favourite weepies.Love Story (1970)
WITH a few notable exceptions, most movies didn’t set out to upset people in the emotionally strait-laced 1950s and ’60s.
All that had changed by the time Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal were paired in this tearjerker.
A young couple from very different backgrounds believe love will conquer all but it can’t beat cancer.Kramer vs Kramer (1979)
TED KRAMER (Dustin Hoffman) is a successful advertising executive whose devotion to his work comes at the expense of his family.
When wife Joanna (Meryl Streep) walks out, Ted unexpectedly finds pleasure in being a dad to their young son Billy and applies for custody, leading to a courtroom fight that’s only ever going to end in tears.Terms of Endearment (1983)
THE friction between Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger as mother and daughter extended to their relations off-screen, where they engaged in a heated shoving match at one point.
Both were nominated for an Oscar for their roles, with Shirley taking home the golden statuette.
Proof again that mother knows best.Beaches (1988)
BETTE MIDLER and Barbara Hershey’s female friendship film was panned by critics for being over-sentimental (summed up in the lyrics to Wind Beneath My Wings) but is loved by its admirers for the same reason.
Two women from different sides of the track share a 30-year friendship, interrupted only by them falling in love with the same man.My Girl (1991)
WE all remember Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone, but in this tear-fest he’s leaving his 11-year-old girlfriend (played by Anna Chlumsky) alone after stepping on a hornets’ nest and dying of an allergic reaction.
Child actress Anna went on to become Amy, campaign manager to the US President, in Veep.
Drug-taking Macaulay went to jail.The Green Mile (1999)
THIS Death Row-set movie is such a heart-warmer for the most part that it comes as a surprise to be reminded that it’s Certificate 18 (due to the botched execution scene).
Tom Hanks is a 1930s prison guard who struggles to believe the kindly new inmate on the block could have been responsible for the horrific crime he’s been convicted of.The Notebook (2004)
AUTHOR Nicholas Sparks has a way with words, but not many of his books have made a successful transition to the silver screen.
However, his debut novel, which jumps between a young couple’s troubled 1940s romance and an elderly husband and wife struggling to stay together in a modern-day nursing home, certainly did.Marley & Me (2008)
YOU don’t have to be a dog lover to shed a tear at this story.
Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston star as a newly-wed couple who welcome an unruly Labrador retriever into their lives.
Over the years their family grows, they move house and jobs but Marley remains steadfastly disobedient until old age slows him down.Up (2009)
THERE’S children’s animation, there’s adult animation and then there is Pixar, who consistently find a way of appealing to both.
In this masterpiece they entertain five-year-olds with a talking dog and a floating house tied to a bunch of balloons and engage 85-year-olds (and everyone else in between) with themes of loneliness and mortality.What film should I watch tonight? 10 films to stream from home – click here to read more
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