Hm. Unrequited love.
The thing is I think there are different kinds of unrequited love. Not to try and make love, which may not in fact be literally irrational, but more accurately is not based on pure rationality, but some kinds of people who make up the beloved are more suitable than others. That is what the Doris movie makes me feel.
Before pursuing that thought, though, it occurs that unrequited love is similar to or may be defined widely enough to include the feelings of those who in fact were in an active romantic relationship that is ended by the beloved. Similar to the preceding paragraph, how does the reasons why it ended relate to a former lover who still wants the relationship to continue, and is perhaps even devastated that it has not, and will not? I think in fact this may be an even more painful kind of love, since the spurned lover in fact was involved with the beloved, likely is bedeviled by memories of such involvement. This likely covers a very large group of people, and may have even happened more than once to such people.
Why do such relationships end? The reasons not to be ironic can seem endless. But think of one where the spurned lover may not understand why it ended, compared to one who say fond out the beloved left to get involved with someone else, someone who they at least profess to love more. I think most people would say about the second that it is something the spurned lover should try and understand and get beyond.
Getting back to the more pure if you will form of requited love, the reasons why the love is not returned can again seem endless in number. Perhaps it is because the beloved is already in a relationship, such as where he or she is married. The spurned lover in such a case may well rightly believe his or her chances would have been much better if the beloved was not so already involved.
And then we must consider that appearances, sexual attraction, do matter. This raises the larger subject of suitability. Here there is if not a purely objective element involved, at least one having elements that go beyond the purely subjective. I think even when we consider our own feelings, for most people there's an element or point where we become less sympathetic when the beloved in some measure is seen as inappropriate. And if nothing else a decision whether to continue after being rebuffed pursuing the beloved must take into account the question of suitability before the irrationality of the pursuit becomes overwhelming.
And here is where Doris comes in. The age difference here is a significant one. We may know of what are called May December romances, but there are in fact not only good reasons why the age of lovers should be closer than not. There is also the objective reality and recognition of it that most people agree they should be. So much so that it is, again, increasingly irrational to suppose the beloved is not going to reject the pursuit on such basis until there is some tangible evidence to the contrary.
After all what we really are talking about in terms of unrequited love is not that someone falls in love with someone else. It is that when the desire that follows leads to pursuit of the beloved, and such pursuit is not rewarded, does not work, then what? What does the spurned lover do?
Doris was not a bad film when it began, although the above issues were there for it to address. But at some point it became less about how we might personally relate to the feeling of a love not returned to one wondering how far Doris was going to go before she "got it". And having gotten it what would she do. That is where the film lost much of its force. Not so much plausibility lost, as it is not implausible that a self destructive or otherwise dysfunctional person might continue a pursuit past the point where it seems reasonable. But that someone is being a nut about loving someone else doesn't seem to say much unless some element making the pursuer sympathetic is present.
I was sympathetic to Doris up to a point, and found it unfortunate that she was suffering. But in the end I don't think her character was well written, but also on this subject sympathetic enough.
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