" `Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl'... organises, indeed

constitutes, the classical American cinema as a whole."

-Raymond Bellour (Bellour, 1974, 16)

"You don't want to be in love - you want to be in love in a movie."

-Becky, Sleepless in Seattle

"Reality and love are almost contradictory to me."

-Céline, Before Sunset

This essay is primarily concerned with the concept of the Hollywood romance happy ending. On a broader scale, it is also concerned with addressing the relationship of these endings to something which (I think it is fair to say) most believe Hollywood seldom attempts to do: depict romantic love `realistically'. Ask most if they consider, for example, Hollywood's current romantic comedies to be `realistic' representations of love and even those who enjoy the genre will be forced to answer - perhaps regretfully - in the negative. We all know...