You’d think you could just rely on genre labels and IMDb warnings to ensure you won’t come across a movie that causes stress. I too, have fallen victim to this line of thinking. There have been many instances where I have watched a movie labeled as comedy, that really should have been labeled tragedy. With enough deep digging, you might be able to discover every upsetting trigger, but why should you have to go through so much effort to spoil your own viewing? Tons of visuals and character dynamics are much more implicit and aren’t listed on warnings, which can take you totally off-guard. 

Once I watched a film called Muriel’s Wedding, after hearing it was an iconic classic that was funny and off-kilter. I was watching it on a plane, so I couldn’t look up the trigger warnings. When watching the film, I discovered it wasn’t just an awkward comedy, if anything it was a really dark comedy. By the time I realized where it was heading it was too late to stop watching. Throughout the film, the main character’s mother is treated horribly by her husband and children, and the entire community.

A lot about the film was upsetting, but I understood that the main character was not meant to be a hero and that she was flawed on purpose. So by the time I was watching her mother taking her own life, I was taken so off-guard. It was not played for laughs, it was a tragedy that was meant to show the main character the consequences of her selfishness. This made me feel physically sick for the rest of the day, and it brought up so many painful memories in my own life. Mind you, if you look at the genre category and even the tone of the poster, Muriel’s Wedding claims to be a Comedy/Romance. 

So if you’re like me, and you get really affected by the content you watch, you should follow my list of films that are just as feel-good as they say they are. This means romances where both characters are attractive, thrillers that end with the main character surviving, and movies with black and brown main characters that aren’t sad.