Is There Such a Thing as TOO SAD?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I flew from Boston to Phoenix to Boston in 24 hours last week, which was so much fun (I saw Rhys and Jenn, too!). But on the flight back,  I was fidgety. Trying to read, but nothing seemed good.  So I flipped though what I'd downloaded on my phone, and found a book Roberta had recommended, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry.  Okay, I thought. Now's the time.

I started reading. I was enchanted. SO sweet, and so clever, and so literary, and sometimes I laughed out loud. Then, the moment came. I got to 61 per cent in the book, and thought--UH OH.  This is gonna be SAD.  And...I stopped reading it. I cannot read sad things, I simply can't, and if I do, I wind up upset for days. So don't tell me what happens, because of course, I could be wrong.  But I don't want to find out. 

I can't watch sad movies, either. I have not seen Beaches, or Steel Magnolias, or Fried Green Tomatoes, or..well, you name the sad movie, I have not seen it. Schindler's List? Oh, dear, no. Life is  Beautiful? Forget it. Up?  No, no no.  I cry so hard, and then my face gets puffy, and then I have to go to sleep, and the next day I have residual sadness. 

How about you Reds and readers? How do you feel about deliberately making yourself sad? (Or is that the wrong way to put it?)  What's the "best" sad movie you've ever seen? 

HALLIE EPHRON: But Hank, you love Game of Thrones?!?! Seriously, you don't like sad endings??

HANK:  Huh. I don't think Games of Thrones is sad. Hardly at all. Huh. It's high-stakes, and high-stress. And violent. But sad?  Only...once or twice, and then not REALLY sad. Anyway. 

HALLIE: I confess to jumping to the end when the tension is just too great and I can't stand what looks like is going to happen. And when people ask me about my books I ALWAYS reassure them that I never kill children. 

Best sad movie I've seen (recently) was Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl.The premise, the performances, the characters (sweet geeky high school losers). Divine.

JENN McKINLAY: I don't do sad. Period. But, yes, I love Game of Thrones because, well, not to be shallow but Jon Snow. 

Forest Gump had me curled up in a fetal position sobbing for two days. It was unpleasant. 

One of my biggest challenges as a writer is my inability to torture my characters. I am much more comfortable with a snappy one liner during an anguish filled scene and move along, folks, nothing to see here. I am working on it. *Sigh* But, yeah, I don't do sad. I avoid it at all cost because, honestly, isn't life tough enough? Plus my nose gets really, really red and I look like a drinker.

INGRID THOFT: I’m okay with sad, although I don’t seek it out, but I definitely don’t do manipulative.  You know, when you can see the sad coming from a mile away, and you feel like you’ve been used a little bit?  Like the writer or filmmaker pushed the “easy button” on your heart?  I really don’t like that.  


Also, I have never recovered from the scene in “Terms of Endearment” in which Shirley MacLaine bangs on the nurses’ station begging them to give Debra Winger more pain meds.  Debra may have been dying, but that scene killed me.  That was 35 years ago, and it still upsets me! 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Right now, I am all about the anti-sad. I'm reading Regency romances (always a happy ending) and watching Hallmark Holiday movies (yes, still!) Normally, however, I like a certain kind of sad. Death of children? No. Cruelty of mankind? Absolutely not. I saw SCHINDLER'S LIST once, and it was an amazing, praiseworthy film, but I'm never going to see it again.

On the other hand, I love noble self-sacrifice. Love that Cannot Be. For instance, I adore the movie version of BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (the book is dreadful.) I'm like, "Oh, no! They love each other! But they can't ever be together!" Copious tears. And I do love the George RR Martin books, even though beloved characters die all the time. Maybe because I never feel, as Ingrid said, used a little bit. They don't die because the author is manipulating your feelings, they die because they inhabit a violent world where there are no deus ex machinas to make things come out all right.

LUCY BURDETTE: I totally have that same scene imprinted in my brain for life, Ingrid. Shirley MacLaine was brilliant there. I don't go looking for sad, but I can take it if something comes out of it. Like the ending of AJ FIKRY was a good ending that emerged from the sad. But I can't do relentlessly grim or scary. There's too much of that on the news. 

Julia, read Kristan Higgins's books. Just what the doctor ordered!

HANK: Yes, yes, Kristan's book will cure any sorrows. (And our Jenn's of course.) 

RHYS BOWEN: When I was young I used to wallow in sad. Little Women and Beth dying. A little Princess. Loved all that sort of stuff. Now I'm old and wise and I know that the world is not fair and takes what we love from us I find it hard to watch anything too sad. I did love It's A Beautiful Life because it was actually so life affirming. I couldn't see Schindler's List. When I saw Out of Africa I came out with tears streaming down my face. Not because Dennis Finch Hatton had died and Karen Blitzen's dreams had been crushed but because I would never have that great and overpowering romance in my life!  

I find that recently I am very picky what I choose to watch at the movies. I have to know I can handle it before I go. And it has to end well!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I don't do sad nearly as well as I did when I was younger. Oh, my, I loved sobbing my way through OUT OF AFRICA, and THE ENGLISH PATIENT was my favorite movie for a couple of years. Now I don't know how I watched it, although I still listen to the soundtrack. 

And SHADOWLANDS, did anyone see that, about C.S. Lewis's wife dying? But people are so funny. Rick absolutely HATED Shadowlands. But he LOVES City of Angels, and we will rewatch it. I cannot.

These days, however, I don't know if it's age or the state of the world, but I pretty much want to know that things are going to turn out okay, or at least sort of okay, before I invest my time in a movie.

HANK: Yes, people will say to me, "oh, I don't want to ruin the movie/book/TV show for you by telling you the ending."  And I say--TELL ME. I can handle it better if I am prepared. 

(And did you notice? Two Debra Winger movies, and two of Meryl's? Hmm.)

What about you, reds and readers? Do you do sad? What's the saddest  movie/book/TV show ever? And are you happy (!) you experienced it?