You have tears running down your cheeks; you just finished the saddest movie you’ve ever seen. But despite the tears, you loved the experience of watching the movie itself.
Why is it that you willingly put yourself through stories that leave you heartbroken and even returning back to them knowing how you feel?
Long after finishing a film, certain scenes, characters, or relationships can remain in people’s minds, leaving behind inexplainable emotions.
Sophomore Brandon Sanchez, pondering over the film, 8 Mile, reflects.
“Films such as this make me reconsider the gratitude I should have for the life I live,” he said.
Movies that aren’t exactly happy leave that impact that gets you to reflect on your own life and experiences.
Sophomore Rafael Rivera thinks on his favorite movie character .
“He tried his best to protect everything he had left, only to realize that sometimes, even your best isn’t enough,” he said.
Rather than feeling bad about a story’s outcome, audiences empathize with the thoughts or actions of characters. The emotional weight of watching others, even if fictional, go through unimaginable things helps audience members recognize the painful reality of life.
According to researchers from the University of Amsterdam, P. Matthias’s Bal and Martijin Veltkap, when people read fiction, and they are emotionally transported to the story, they become more empathic. Other perspectives and stories place viewers in lives that aren’t their own, leading them to share the emotional experience of a character.
In the 2022 series Twenty-Five Twenty-One, there is a strong focus on growing up, changing ambitions, first love, and the painful distance between who people once were and who they become. These are all familiar ideas that allow an audience to look back at their own experiences, resonating with them and their emotions.
Story writers strategically build something that leaves readers attached at the start to take it away from them in the end to leave a lasting impact.
Even though viewers may be crying their hearts out, the experience leading up to that heartbreak is what sticks.
The fact that viewers are emotionally moved by a film is what makes it memorable; that impact can outlast the story itself.
Whether a story puts you in the shoes of a character, or reminds you of a stage in your life, everyone strives to get that reflective mix of emotions after knowing what can lead up to it.
