Platonic Writing Romantic Reading / Live-Action Films

Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading in Films.

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• The Mad Hatter and Alice are a bit on the edge in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010). It's some weird crossbreed between platonic affection for a savior and romantic affection for someone Hatter is confusedly attracted to. Actually, it was a full-blown romance in the original draft of the screenplay.
• In the 2017 film version of Before I Fall, lead character Samantha Kingston's love interest is supposed to be her awkward admirer Kent McFuller. However, she has a lot more chemistry with her best friend and the local Alpha Bitch, Lindsay Edgecome, who sniffs her hair, calls her "bae," and even kisses her deeply enough to leave a lipstick marking, which Sam seems to enjoy. On the final cycle of the "Groundhog Day" Loop, Sam's confrontation with Lindsay is also far more emotional than the one with Kent.
• Carrie and subsequent adaptations:
  • The Brian De Palma version has Tommy kiss Carrie out of nowhere at the prom. In the book it's made clear that Tommy only saw Carrie as a friend and was taking her to the prom as a favor to Sue. The film doesn't really explain why he's kissing Carrie — since he's basically cheating on Sue. This is probably why both remakes go out of their way to say that Tommy only sees Carrie as a friend.
  • Also in the DePalma version, there's an awful lot of Les Yay between Carrie and Coach Collins, the only teacher who likes her. Collins' actress Betty Buckley stated she intended to portray her as a lesbian, but never specified whether she was supposed to be attracted to Carrie.
  • Carrie (2002) really amps up the amount of scenes between Carrie and Sue, to the point that it almost seems like Sue is interested in her. And Sue also makes a throwaway joke about her and Carrie having a lesbian affair.
• The Devil Wears Prada: Unlike their book counterparts, the interactions between the film versions of Andy and Miranda come off to many as Belligerent Sexual Tension, and a May–December Romance later on, rather than the overbearing boss-employee relationship it is supposed to be. This is especially apparent after Andy's make-over, where Miranda checks her from head to toe and proceeds to stare at her as she walks away. Meanwhile, Andy goes from complaining about Miranda behind her back to repeatedly gushing about her to people and breaks things off with Christian immediately after finding out the plan to replace Miranda. The scene where Andy finds Miranda after Miranda learns of her impending divorce is often singled out by fans as seeming to come out of a romance movie. This gets lampshaded by both Emily, "Why didn't you just climb into bed with her", and Andy's actual love interest Nate, "The person whose calls you always take. That's the relationship you're in". It doesn't help Nate is outright considered The Scrappy by many fans of the film for being so unsupportive of Andy's career.
• Doom: This movie suffers from this trope to a near-comical extent regarding John and Samantha Grimm, a Brother–Sister Team of fraternal twins who are the film's primary protagonists and serve as The Not-Love Interest to one another. Virtually every scene between the two characters implies a more romantic connection than a familial one, with their immature bickering when they first meet back up coming across as awkward flirting more than anything else. Furthermore, John and Sam's mutual character arc of overcoming their past estrangement following them having chosen different career paths is framed less like two siblings learning how to care about one another again and more like two embittered ex-spouses slowly falling back into love. Hell, the mere fact that the film ends with a battered and bruised John gently carrying an injured and unconscious Sam to safety in a Bridal Carry while she affectionately nuzzles his neck strongly implies that the two characters were originally intended as husband and wife in an earlier draft of the script, and the necessary re-editing to make them siblings was done pretty hastily.
• Ender's Game: There is a ridiculous amount of apparent romantic subtext between Ender and his sister Valentine, to the point that she's appearing in his mind games as the princess that he has to rescue from a castle, and she's the one that Graff turns to in order to convince Ender to return to the Battle School after he suffers a Heroic BSoD. It's so prominent that the movie's attempts to hint at a romance between Ender and classmate Petra barely even register.
• The infamous Fantastic Four (2015) barely took the time to set up Reed and Sue as the iconic couple from the comics. Instead, they dwelled on how Ben Grimm, friends with Reed since childhood, helped him reach the scholarship he'd always dreamed of, how Ben (and not Reed's parents) helped Reed move into the Baxter Foundation, how Reed could not consider deploying the teleporter without Ben there, the list goes on. The emotional peak of the movie is when Reed abandons Ben (specifically Ben) in a government facility to save himself from being experimented on... and Ben's reaction is not that unlike a scorned lover. Deleted drafts of the script had Ben consider enlisting in the army once he realizes Reed is moving on with his life and forgetting him. Uh...
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra:
  • Yeah, Storm Shadow, you're killing the Baroness' husband on "Destro's orders." Sure... Doesn't help that they come off of as more of a Battle Couple than Scarlett and Snake-Eyes, the ORIGINAL pair of leading lady and badass ninja. The novelization seems to add considerable mutual witty banter and, yes, flirtation.
  • The Novelization also offers Ho Yay for Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, who seem to be matching Official Couple (sort-of) Duke and Ana/The Baroness flashback for flashback, meaningful look for meaningful look. (Bizarrely carries over to the Ninja Showdown kid's book.) Oddly out-of-place due to the gist of their past relationship being "We really, really don't like each other."
• Godzilla, weirdly enough, has a recurring example in the title character's relationship with frequent ally/enemy Mothra. When the two find themselves on the same side, their devotion to each other is unique amongst the series' supporting cast- with the possible exception of Anguirus. However, unlike Anguirus, Mothra is the only ally of the Monster King who is traditionally female. And, seeing as how there's never been another Godzilla, let alone a Mrs. Godzilla for the big guy to interact with, for many fans that seems to be enough to pair them off- never mind that one is a radioactive lizard from the dawn of time and the other is a moth goddess with Resurrective Immortality. Particular entries that enflame this include:
  • Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster: The second time the two met on screen, Mothra manages to convince a rampaging Godzilla to turn his attention away from humanity and become a hero for the first time in the franchise. Later, Ghidorah attacks the weakened Mothra and Godzilla rushes to her defense.
  • Ebirah, Horror of the Deep: In a film where Godzilla already displays some seriously OOC romantic behavior,^note Towards a native islander girl, probably a remnant of when this film was envisioned as a vehicle for one King Kong Mothra shows up right at the conclusion to save the human protagonists from a nuclear blast. When it looks like Godzilla may be caught in it, Mothra and her fairies desperately call out for him- and he responds, very unlike the Byronic Hero he had become at that point.
  • Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.: Though Mothra is set against Godzilla in this film, both she and her fairies display an extremely emotional reverence for the remains of the previous Godzilla, which had been used in the last entry to rebuild Mechagodzilla. Mothra is willing to consider turning against humanity in order to ensure their peaceful internment.
  • Finally, Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) lit the fire anew for a generation of modern fans, explicitly placing Godzilla and Mothra in a 'symbiotic relationship,' which involves the two of them sharing an empathic connection and possessing an instinctive drive to defend the other. For the first time also, Mothra is given the Distaff Counterpart moniker Queen of the Monsters, tying her even closer to Godzilla. It didn't take long for fanart circles to become flooded with art of the two of them cuddling or raising eggs together, amongst... many other things.
• Gone with the Wind amps up Scarlet and Melanie's Pseudo-Romantic Friendship. Since Ashley is off at war for most of Part 1, Melanie shares far more scenes with Scarlet. It's made quite clear that Melanie is utterly devoted to her. Even her husband won't get away with making Scarlet cry. Scarlet likewise shows far more distress over Melanie's death at the end than Rhett breaking it off with her.
• Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters: There's significantly stronger romantic and sexual subtext between Hansel and Gretel themselves — both characters are quite physically affectionate with one another, several scenes where they show concern for the other can come across as pining, and their bickering is basically vitriolic flirting more than half the time — resulting in a situation where the two twin siblings seem to be practicing Twincest and Mina is Hansel's cover.
• Harry Potter:
  • Harry and Hermione. Likely due to the fact that Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson had more natural chemistry, the amount of Harry/Hermione subtext in the movies is astounding. There are added scenes in almost every movie that (if it were any other series) would suggest they were the Official Couple. There is a large group of fans who did not read the books and just watched the movies who were certain that Harry and Hermione were going to end up together. This is not to say that there are no Harry/Hermione shippers among the fans of the books, see the Literature section for more info. The films' head writer, Steve Kloves, while reading the books, assumed Harry and Hermione would end up together and told J.K. Rowling he was surprised when they didn't. This has often been twisted by fan word-of-mouth into Kloves being a rabid shipper of the pairing and actively trying to undermine the canonical couples. Regardless, by the time the final book was released and formally granted Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione Official Couple status, the only movies left to make were Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, giving Kloves limited time and room to course correct. Had Kloves known about the final pairings ahead of time, he likely would have given them more development and buildup prior to Half-Blood Prince, including giving Ginny more screentime and interactions with Harry.
  • In every film in which Luna appears, there's at least one scene between her and Harry that can be taken as Ship Tease, only one of which (him bringing her as his date to Slughorn's party) was in the books. Combine this with the fact that Harry and Ginny's courtship was seriously abbreviated from the books, and one gets the distinct impression the writers were only begrudgingly admitting Ginny was the intended love interest. Interestingly, Luna was sorta-kinda paired up with Neville in the finale, which also wasn't in the books. In the books, neither of them end up with anyone but Word of God says they both marry other people (Luna marries someone who wasn't even in the books), prompting Neville's actor to say in an interview that their relationship was basically a summer fling.
• High School Musical:
  • Ryan and Sharpay Evans; maybe the writers should have thought first before creating a pair of twins who are always hanging on and around each other, make a habit of playing romantic partners in theater, and are even implicitly marketed in the franchise's posters and imagery as being a main couple. We're even told that "if Sharpay could play both Romeo and Juliet her brother would be out of a job". The Disney Channel series Shake it Up deliberately invokes this trope in Gunther and Tinka — Word of God even states that this was done to poke fun at the relationship of Ryan and Sharpay as well as Gunther and Tinka's Expy status of those characters. There's an incredibly good reason why this song was cut from the first movie. Go to 1:12 and tell us those characters are supposed to be brother and sister, especially a brother and sister who don't particularly have any strong emotional bond to justify it a little.
  • Ryan and Chad introduce a Ho Yay Relationship Writing Fumble in the second movie. Ryan's actor wanted him to be explicitly gay and into Chad, but Disney wouldn't allow that at the time. Thus, the two were played up in a romantic fashion, which was gone by 3.
• House of Wax (2005): Nick and Carly were written as fraternal twins and Carly is dating Wade for half of the movie. However, Chad Michael Murray (Nick) and Elisha Cuthbert (Carly) simply have better chemistry with one another than Cuthbert and Jared Padalecki (Wade) do, resulting in a lot of unintentional twincestuous subtext. Further accentuating this, the underlying arc of the film has the two siblings reconciling in a manner evocative of estranged lovers, with Nick getting to rescue Carly the way a boyfriend would before she then saves him (effectively cementing the two as a Battle Couple in all but name).
• The Hunger Games: The film adaptation of the first book omits almost all of Katniss' internal monologue as a part of it being a Pragmatic Adaptation. As a result, the fact that she's faking a romantic attraction to Peeta during this installment of the movie series for the benefit of the crowd and her own survival doesn't come through fully. By the end of the movie, it looks like a genuine romance between the two instead of the initially tragic one-sided relationship of the books. The love story is made to seem like it's between Katniss and Gale, with Peeta and her public fake-romance with him being an obstacle to overcome while in the books, it's actually a love story between Katniss and Peeta, with Gale only in the mix for a triangle that never really kicks off and lasts only through the first half of the second book. And, most of all, for making the love story seem front and center when it's a side plot in the books. For the second film, the filmmakers chose to add relationship bits between Katniss and one guy and remove a lot of relationship bits between her and the other guy — presumably in order to milk more out of the love triangle concept and even things out between the boys. Consequently, many people who have only seen the films and not read the books, including several film critics, believe that Gale is Katniss' boyfriend when in actuality he's her male friend who feels unrequited love for her. To the point where there's a lot of criticism against both Katniss and Peeta over Katniss "cheating on" Gale.
• Shura and Vincento in Hussar Ballad. It's supposed to be a clear-cut example of Defeat Means Friendship, but looks less platonic than that. When they first appear (after she takes him prisoner), they smile happily at each other and look (especially Shura) quite giddy, as if they have just been in bed rather than in battle. Vincento’s compliments to Shura sound like flirting (the official English subtitles aren’t helping: "That’s the first time I meet an enemy like this" is translated as "I’ve never met the likes of you"). Then, when they meet at the French camp (she on a spy mission, he after his escape), they share a long Held Gaze before Vincento decides to commit treason for her sake, the very thing he said he’ll never do. Additionally, Shura’s treatment by her official Love Interest looks more like abuse than Belligerent Sexual Tension to many modern viewers, while Vincento is nothing but affectionate towards her. The creators, it seems, were aware of the problem, because in the original play, Vincento tenderly kisses Shura several times to convince the French she is his brother, which got removed from the film.
• The Intern: Jules and Ben's friendship is supposed to be platonic, but a couple of scenes do give the impression things are heading in a romantic direction. Namely, when she passes out drunk in his arms and shows surprise at Fiona being in his house. Likewise, their hotel room scene looks as if it's going to head for Jules making a pass at him. Nothing happens of course, but the setup is curious.
• In The Kissing Booth 2 Chloe and Noah are intentionally hinted to have romantic interest in each other, only for it to be revealed they're really just friends. Trouble is, some viewers think they carried off the "bait" part of the Bait-and-Switch a little too well, as Noah and Chloe come off as rather flirty and touchy-feely for platonic friends (especially compared to Lee and Elle).
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Throughout the MCU's Captain America trilogy of films, Captain America and his childhood friend Bucky Barnes are so intensely devoted to each other that they're willing to throw everything away including their own lives and reputations just to protect each other, while Cap's relationship with his official love interest, Sharon Carter, is so conspicuously underdeveloped in comparison, that a lot of people are convinced Bucky is Captain America's real love interest. Even the films' writers fumbled mid-sentence, describing their relationship as a "love story" before quickly calling them brothers. It got to the point that in 2016 a popular hashtag called #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend was launched, in part due to how differently their relationship came off to viewers than the writers expected.
  • The Avengers with Clint and Natasha. Natasha is unendingly loyal to Clint and wants to save him from Loki so much she at one point offers to free him in exchange for freeing Clint, while he seems to know more about her than anyone else. There wasn't anything explicitly romantic about them, but they're depicted as so close that fans assumed they were each other's Implied Love Interest, resulting in them becoming the most popular Het couple in the fandom. Oddly, it's partly because Natasha never flirts with him that they seemed like they could be romantic. Until in Avengers: Age of Ultron when you find out they're Like Brother and Sister, especially when Clint's wife is introduced, which resulted in a very annoyed fandom, especially since in the comics, they were indeed romantically involved.
• Paper Towns: Unlike the book, Lacey and Ben don't have much chemistry. Many viewers felt Lacey had more chemistry with Q than she did with Ben, or than Q did with Margo. This was possibly a holdover from an earlier (and, according to John Green, far worse) version of the script which did in fact change the Official Couple from Q and Margo to Q and Lacey.
• Pete and Natalie from the Pete's Dragon remake give off a Puppy Love vibe in a lot of scenes, especially in their first scene together.
• Princess Protection Program: Carter and Rosie are supposed to be at odds with each other before becoming best friends. However, their earlier moments come off more like the kind of Belligerent Sexual Tension you would find in a teen romance movie. Including a scene where Rosie orders Carter to dress her for bed. Also, due to how short of a time they have known each other, it's easy to read their latter bonding moments as flirty. Particularly the scene where they are trying on dresses or the one with them in front of the mirror. In the latter Rosie is very close to Carter from behind, and basically tells her she's beautiful, before placing a crown on Carter's head. There's also the burping scene which features the two on a swing and opening up to each other, which seems straight out of a romance story. Plus the extended ending where the two become agents together and end up slow walking down the beach together.
• Push: If the reviews and fan reactions are anything to go by, whatever relationship thirteen-year-old Cassie and twenty-three-year-old Nick were supposed to have wasn't what the audience saw, given her Clingy Jealous Girl behavior once Kira arrives. The worst offender was the hotel scene when Cassie leaves, "powers her use" by getting drunk, then returns to curse out Nick's actual love interest Kira, making it come across as though she has a Precocious Crush.
• The 2018 film Red Joan is about an elderly woman being outed as a Cold War spy - who first became one by entering a romance with a Soviet agent. Except the first scene establishing her past has her meeting a Hard-Drinking Party Girl who climbs into her room, has No Sense of Personal Space and is very friendly. This character Sonya just becomes Joan's friend (and eventual contact when she begins spying) but the scene is very much a Meet Cute - making it look like Joan was actually a lesbian. Indeed some early scenes between Joan, Sonya and Leo make it look like a Love Triangle is forming - with Sonya as the Hypoteneuse.
• Star Wars:
  • In the prequels Anakin and Obi-Wan are hit by this trope. The most overt examples are Anakin showing more affection to Obi-Wan than he does to his wife, and Obi-Wan's continued reluctance to off the homicidal brat even after witnessing his deeds first hand. The Novelization of Revenge of the Sith outright states that Anakin loves both Padme and Obi-Wan, that his fall to The Dark Side was ultimately a choice over which one of them he loved more, and describes them during their fight as "closer than brothers, closer than lovers".
  • Luke and Leia, and their behavior towards each other in A New Hope and half of The Empire Strikes Back. Whether they were intended to be siblings from the beginning is one of many things that falls victim to Lucas' Flip-Flop of God, but the end result is this trope. The Westermarck Effect doesn't get a chance to kick in when you separate twins immediately after birth. ^note And in fact there's a phenomenon called Genetic Sexual Attraction where closely related people who only meet as adults become intensely attracted to each other.
  • The sequel trilogy saw shipping wars break out in the fanbase, with the three major camps being Finn/Rey, Rey/Kylo, and Finn/Poe. All three pairings have moments in all three films that can be interpreted as Ship Tease, and this wasn’t helped by comments from the cast poking at the issue. Near the very end of the third film, Rey/Kylo becomes canon... only for Kylo to die immediately after the couple shares their First Kiss. The rest of the potentially romantic subtext between the characters remains unaddressed. Needless to say, some fans found the film’s resolution of the romance angle confusing and underbaked.
• In the low-budget film A Talking Cat!?!, the character Chris is supposed to wind up with Tina, but the film is so poorly written that he winds up having more chemistry with Tina's brother, Trent. (Bonus points for the fact that both the boys go swimming in the pool together at one point.) It's worth noting that the company that made this movie also specializes in explicitly homoerotic films.
• Teen Beach Movie 2: Lela and Mack are supposed to be friends and straight with boyfriends. However, Lela begins the movie basically ignoring her boyfriend Tanner and seemingly pinning over Mack. When she finds Mack's necklace, Lela readily abandons her whole life, including Tanner if he hadn't followed, just to see her again. When first arriving in the real world, she's overly excited to wear Mack's clothes and model for her, while acting like a teenage girl in front of her crush. Lela hangs out with Mack to the point that Tanner gets jealous, and then refuses to leave her new life and seemingly Mack behind. Lela ends the film by throwing Mack her jacket and winking at her. For Mack's part, she seems starstruck when she sees Lela look "normal" for the first time, with her mouth hanging open. She encourages Lela to rewrite the movie, and in the alternate timeline is obsessed with the movie Lela, Queen of the Beach even more than Brady was with Wet Side Story.
• During the wedding in Breaking Dawn Part 1]] some thought the dance between Bella and Jacob looked more natural with more connection and romance than the dance between Bella and Edward.
• The Wizard of Oz: There is rather a lot of affection between Dorothy and the Scarecrow. Most notable is the goodbye scene where she saves him for last and says, "I think I'll miss you most of all," — though nothing comes of it. This is partly due to a dropped plot point — where the film would have ended with a Maybe Ever After scenario between Dorothy and Huck (the Scarecrow's human counterpart). But since Dorothy is meant to be only twelve or fourteen in the film, it's quite possible this is just a platonic pairing.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine is mostly about a heterosexual relationship, but the relationship between Wolverine and Sabretooth is too strong to be unintentional. While both characters repeatedly talk about how they're 'brothers', the constant Something Else Also Rises, playful flirting, eyeing each other, phallic symbolism, and grappling each other while yelling "Feels good, doesn't it?" kind of ruins the 'brothers' vibe. It's worth noting that the comic-book version of Wolverine's childhood featured a significant redhead named Rose as his first love interest. The first scenes in the movie are copied almost directly from the comic, except with a young Sabretooth in Rose's place.