If 500 Days of Summer taught us anything it was that movies have ruined men's impression of how real-life relationships work. Our heads are so full of fantasy that we believe Zooey Deschanel-esque girls will one day fall hopelessly in love with us and everything will be fine. In the movie, when Summer doesn't return such feelings (as she warned us she wouldn't), our whole world falls apart, despite the existence of 3.5 billion other women, one of whom is bound to be if not the same, at least remarkably similar to "the girl of our dreams". And that's just one way that cinema has ruined love. There are others - a whole spectrum of cruel falsehoods thrown at us by film-makers that leave us poor menfolk floundering in the dark. So taking direct inspiration from one of
the worst songwriters of all time, these are seven films that have shattered the illusion of Hollywood's ideal image of love. Some attempt to portray the trickier truth that reality is far more complex and unpredictable than your average rom-com. Others show a darker side to love not usually celebrated in the cinema industry. And one is just a terrible film.