Line #2 Heartwarming/Christine


1	* When Arnie tells Dennis the reason he bought Christine because he found something uglier than himself, Dennis replies, "You're not ugly". Which is true. Arnie isn't ugly.
2	* As much of an asshole Darnell is, it was pretty sweet that he offered Arnie a job in exchange for free car parts to fix [=Christine=] and a few bucks. Even if the sweet moment only lasted five seconds.
3	* The descriptions Dennis gives of his early friendship with Arnie, and how much he misses his friend when the latter undergoes a personality change.
4	* The hitchhiker Leigh gets Arnie to stop for saves her from choking on a hamburger.
5	* There's something kind of poignant about the scene in the film where Arnie talks to Christine after Buddy and his cronies trash her. Say what you will about Arnie's change in behavior at that point, but the way he cares about his car getting wrecked would be enough for anyone who just got their first car damaged in some way to identify with Arnie. This could be enough to even border as a TearJerker.
6	* Arnie and Dennis's friendship. As the story goes on, Arnie becomes more and more obsessed with Christine, coming to value her over his parents (who, to be fair, ''are'' controlling {{jerkass}}es) and his new relationship with Leigh. However, it is his friendship with Dennis, which at the start of the story is portrayed as perhaps the best relationship Arnie has before he purchases Christine, which persists throughout. The two friends certainly drift apart, yet Arnie still goes to see Dennis in the hospital after he has been injured. He also goes to visit him on Thanksgiving. While Dennis notes at this point that he hasn't seen Arnie in a while, it still says quite a lot that Arnie apparently valued his friendship with Dennis so much that even under Christine's influence, he still cared about him.
7	* The novel goes into more detail over Arnie and Dennis's friendship:
8	** Dennis meets a possessed Arnie and appeals to him to stop. Arnie briefly breaks free... briefly, so it counts as a TearJerker too.
9	** When Christine is destroyed, Arnie's ghost appears and thanks him for freeing him before departing.
10	* Dennis comforting Leigh with a hug after she talks about her suspicions about Christine and the attempt the vehicle made on her life.
11	* A deleted scene set after Arnie drops off Christine at Darnell's has him breaking down and Dennis comforting him. It pretty nicely shows how much Dennis cares for Arnie.
12	* Regina and her estranged sister reconcile over their shared concern over Arnie (and Regina realizing her sister is being less judgmental than she would be in the same position) in the book.
13	* In the novel, Dennis asks Jimmy Sykes (the janitor at Darnell's) to borrow his keys so he can get into Darnell's to set things up for the final confrontation with Christine. He tells Jimmy that Arnie left an expensive ratchet set at the garage as a cover story. Jimmy agrees to let Dennis borrow the keys, but asks him to please not forget to return them because "They're all I got to remember Will by." Even Dennis notes that this is touching; to Jimmy, his deceased boss was "Will," not "Mr. Darnell," and Jimmy is probably the only person in the world to mourn the man's death.
14	* As twisted and toxic the relationship is, in the film it becomes clear that Christine and Arnie do genuinely love eachother and are trying to protect one another with their possessiveness. It gets to the point where, after Arnie is fatally wounded with broken glass in the final confrontation, Christine briefly stops her assault, rolls up to him as he's dying, and dims her headlights while playing one of the first songs they bonded over.

Context Heartwarming / Christine