I watch devastatingly emotional movies. I used to ask myself why I did this. And it’s because it is so much easier to be sad than happy for me personally. I love watching movies that take a toll on your mentality and put pressure on your heart. For a period in my life I only watched sad movies.

I watched movies that took me two days to complete because the content was draining. It was actually exhausting for me to watch. It took something out of my body to watch these films and I was comfortable where I was. This may sound dumb, but I refused to watch a funny or happy movie.

I finally watched a movie with a happy ending, not on purpose but by coincidence. It was the movie I needed to watch. I was so confused. I thought the only way to feel emotions were through the devastatingly sad dialogue of a film, but movies with happy endings can change your life. Maybe I’m the only one in the world who needed that to be explained to them, but I now appreciate both.

I read this comment on Rotten Tomatoes about Manchester by the Sea. One comment described Manchester by the Sea as a “kind of sadness that makes you feel more alive”. I couldn’t agree more. And those are the films that inspire me. That’s the thing about movies, the good ones are complex and it doesn’t have to be labeled as sad or happy.