Don Paglia | Marriage and Family Counseling. Constellations Workshops

Don's Favorites

Don’s Favorite Movies: (films related to relationships – Think: Date Night)

More Recent Films

Chef

About Time

Older Films

Hope Springs
Once Around
The Story of Us
Only the Lonely
The Great Santini
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Joy Luck Club
The Notebook
Kramer vs. Kramer
Before the Sun Rises
After the Sun Sets
Annie Hall
Dinner with Friends
Ordinary people
Shoot the Moon

Chef – Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) suddenly quits his job at a prominent Los Angeles restaurant after refusing to compromise his creative integrity for its controlling owner (Dustin Hoffman), he is left to figure out what’s next. Finding himself in Miami, he teams up with his ex-wife (Sofia Vergara), his friend (John Leguizamo) and his son to launch a food truck. It is a story of getting back to one’s roots to reignite his passion  – in Casper’s case  the kitchen — and zest for life,  our primary relationships and love.

About Time – At the age of 21, Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) discovers he can travel in time… The night after another unsatisfactory New Year party, Tim’s father (Bill Nighy) tells his son that the men in his family have always had the ability to travel through time. Tim can’t change history, but he can change what happens and has happened in his own life-so he decides to make his world a better place…by getting a girlfriend. Sadly, that turns out not to be as easy as you might think. Moving from the Cornwall coast to London to train as a lawyer, Tim finally meets the beautiful but insecure Mary (Rachel McAdams). They fall in love, then an unfortunate time-travel incident means he’s never met her at all. So they meet for the first time again-and again-but finally, after a lot of cunning time-traveling, he wins her heart. Tim then uses his power to create the perfect romantic proposal, to save his wedding from the worst best-man speeches, to save his best friend from professional disaster and to get his pregnant wife to the hospital in time for the birth of their daughter, despite a nasty traffic jam outside Abbey Road. But as his unusual life progresses, Tim finds out that his unique gift can’t save him from the sorrows and ups and downs that affect all families, everywhere. There are great limits to what time travel can achieve, and it can be dangerous too. About Time is a comedy about love and time travel, which discovers that, in the end, making the most of life may not need time travel at all. The presents serious considerations for all of us to live Now.

Hope Springs is story of a devoted couple, but decades of marriage have left Kay wanting to spice things up and reconnect with her husband. When she hears of a renowned couple’s specialist (Steve Carell) in the small town of Great Hope Springs, she attempts to persuade her skeptical husband, a steadfast man of routine, to get on a plane for a week of marriage therapy. Just convincing the stubborn Arnold to go on the retreat is hard enough – the real challenge for both of them comes as they shed their bedroom hang-ups and try to re-ignite the spark that caused them to fall for each other in the first place.

Once Around is a 1991 romantic comedy-drama film about a young woman who falls for and eventually marries an overbearing older man who proceeds to rub her close-knit family the wrong way, while exposing the dynamics of other family members along the way. It stars Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Danny Aiello, Laura San Giacomo and Gena Rowlands and was directed by Lasse Hallström.

The Story of Us follows the ups and downs of 15 years in the lives of Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer, a couple facing the possible end of their marriage, in director Rob Reiner’s funny and moving seriocomic look at modern romance and the give and take of relationships. Fine supporting cast includes Julie Hagerty, Tim Matheson, Paul Reiser, Rita Wilson.

Only the Lonely is a 1991 romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Chris Columbus. It starred John Candy, Maureen O’Hara, Ally Sheedy and Anthony Quinn. The plot is similar to the earlier award-winning film Marty. Danny Muldoon (John Candy), a 38-year-old Chicago policeman, still lives with his overbearing Irish mother, Rose Muldoon (Maureen O’Hara). A lonely bachelor, Danny falls in love with Theresa Luna (Ally Sheedy), an introverted, lonely girl who works in her father’s funeral home as a cosmetician. On their first date, he takes her to Comiskey Park (shortly before it was torn down) and has a picnic on the field. Their courtship eventually becomes very difficult because Rose begins to feel threatened that Theresa is trying to steal her son away; the fact that Theresa is not Irish (she is Sicilian and Polish) only exacerbates the situation.

The Great Santini is a 1979 film which tells the story of a Marine officer whose success as a military aviator contrasts with his shortcomings as a husband and father. The film explores the high price of heroism and self-sacrifice. It stars Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, Michael O’Keefe, Lisa Jane Persky, Julie Anne Haddock, Brian Andrews, Stan Shaw and David Keith.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a 2002 Canadian-American romantic comedy film written by and starring Nia Vardalos and directed by Joel Zwick. The film is centered on Fotoula “Toula” Portokalos, a middle class Greek American woman who falls in love with a non-Greek upper middle class “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant” Ian Miller. A sleeper hit, the film grossed $241.4 million in North America, despite never reaching number one at the box office during its release (the highest-grossing film to accomplish this feat).

The Notebook is a 2004 romantic drama film directed by Nick Cassavetes. The screenplay, written by Jeremy Leven and Jan Sardi, is based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as a young couple who fall in love during the early 1940s. Their story is narrated from the present day by an elderly man (played by James Garner) telling the tale to a fellow nursing home resident (played by Gena Rowlands, who is Cassavetes’ mother). At a modern-day nursing home, an elderly man, whom people call “Duke” (James Garner), begins to read a romantic love story from his notebook to an elderly woman, fellow patient (Gena Rowlands).

Kramer vs. Kramer is a 1979 American drama film adapted by Robert Benton from the novel by Avery Corman, and directed by Benton. The film tells the story of a married couple’s divorce and its impact on everyone involved, including the couple’s young son. It received five Academy Awards. Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) is a workaholic advertising executive who has just been assigned a new and very important account. Ted arrives home and shares the good news with his wife Joanna (Meryl Streep) only to find that she is leaving him. Saying that she needs to find herself, she leaves Ted to raise their son Billy (Justin Henry) by himself. Ted and Billy initially resent one another as Ted no longer has time to carry his increased workload and Billy misses his mother’s love and attention. After months of unrest, Ted and Billy learn to cope and gradually bond as father and son.

Annie Hall is about comedian Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) who examines the rise and fall of his relationship with struggling nightclub singer Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). Speaking directly to the audience in front of a bare background, Singer reflects briefly on his childhood and his early adult years before settling in to tell the story of how he and Annie met, fell in love, and struggled with the obstacles of modern romance, mixing surreal fantasy sequences with small moments of emotional drama.

Dinner with Friends is an adaptation of the screenplay about Gabe and Karen, a happily married middle-aged couple, have been friends with Tom and Beth, another married couple, for many years. In fact, it was Gabe and Karen who fixed up their friends in the first place. While having dinner at Gabe and Karen’s home, Beth tearfully reveals that she is getting a divorce from Tom, who has been unfaithful. Tom, who had been away on business, finds out that Beth has told their friends about the looming divorce, and hastens to Gabe and Karen’s home. Tom and Beth had planned to tell their friends about their breakup together, but Tom now believes that Beth has unfairly presented herself as the wronged party, and feels he must present his own side of the story.
Over the course of the play, we see both couples at different ages and stages of their lives, and we witness the effects of Tom and Beth’s breakup on Gabe and Karen, who first feel compelled to choose sides, and then begin to question the strength of their own seemingly tranquil marriage. They also begin to see the real meaning behind their friendships with Tom and Beth.

Ordinary People is a drama about Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.

Shoot the Moon is a touching story about Marcy Meyers, a woman down on her luck. Faced with piling bills, the remnants of a failed marriage, and now an imminent home foreclosure, she has nowhere to turn but to the hope of a miracle. That miracle she finds in Shoot the Moon, a national game show that promises a one in a lifetime chance to win it all. But Marcy’s faith in the show comes with a price. As her relationship with her daughter Alice is put to the test, the clock ticks towards a seemingly inescapable fate. Shoot the Moon tells the story of miracles and the extraordinary place they are found.

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