The 1996 movie that never fails to make Matt Damon cry: “That one always gets to me”
It may not necessarily threaten to steal the crown away from any of cinema’s most famous tearjerkers, but Matt Damon knows exactly what he needs to watch whenever he feels like he needs a good cry.
While many movies are designed, whether it’s organically or cynically, to tug at the heartstrings, there’s no set formula for which films will reduce their audiences to sobbing husks. Many viewers have sat stony-faced at some of cinema’s most emotional scenes, while others bawl at the most unexpected films.
Terms of Endearment and Sophie’s Choice are two of the most famous, or infamous, if you’re averse to shedding a tear in the cinema, while there was barely a dry eye in the house by the time Pixar’s Up ended its gut-wrenching prologue, and more than a few self-styled macho men had to contend with a quivering bottom lip when Arnold Schwarzenegger sacrificed himself in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Damon has never been one to portray himself as the manliest man in Hollywood, both onscreen and off, so it would make sense that he can’t stop himself from sobbing when watching a genre-bending combination of sports flick, comedy, drama, and romance, although he’d be a lot happier if more of the male population admitted that they felt exactly the same way.
“It is a tearjerker, but it’s a life-affirming one,” he clarified. “The way Jerry Maguire always gets me all misty when I watch it. Men don’t admit it, but Jerry Maguire? That one always gets to me, I think, in large part, because I don’t feel like it’s trying too hard.”
From “you complete me” to “you had me at hello,” Cameron Crowe’s 1996 favourite is no slouch in delivering memorable lines during emotional exchanges between two of its principal characters, with Tom Cruise in Golden Globe-winning form as the titular sports agent, even if he ended up returning it along with his other two trophies years later.
Originally written for Tom Hanks, when the back-to-back Academy Award winner turned it down, Cruise didn’t so much step into the breach as dive in headfirst from a great height, with Crowe staggered by the level of commitment and involvement that his new leading man offered, making him wonder why he’d even bothered offering it to Hollywood’s other A-list Tom in the first place.
Woody Harrelson also knocked back the chance to headline Jerry Maguire, but Cruise is so good in the part that you can’t really imagine him playing the role, not that the Cheers alum minded too much, when they ended up competing against each other in the ‘Best Actor’ category when the movie he made instead, The People vs Larry Flynt, gave him the platform to deliver career-best work.
It may not be the first tearjerker that comes to mind, but try telling that to Damon, who can’t make it through Crowe’s picture without coming close to drowning in a puddle of his own tears.
