My Favourite Movie Couple

For this week’s book and more blog hop, we’ve been asked to reveal our favourite movie couple.

For once, I didn’t have to trawl through a list of contenders. Without hesitation, I can say it’s Joan Wilder and Jack T. Colton from the rom-com duet Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile. If you haven’t watched the films, let me warn you, there are spoilers ahead.

I prefer Romancing the Stone, but Jewel of the Nile is a decent sequel and I like that it showed a bit more of the realities of their relationship after the initial thrill and excitement has worn off. I thought Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas had great chemistry in both films.

Why are they my favourite movie couple?

Again, I guess it’s down to the chemistry. Like all rom-coms, it has some cheesy and questionable moments. I’m not particularly enamoured of Jack’s dancing, but this is balanced by so many great moments of banter and feisty arguments.

Joan and Jack are an opposites attract couple, forced together by unforeseen circumstances, without which they would never have met. I would watch Romancing the Stone over and over, and if I’m honest, I have done so many times just to watch them argue. It’s fiery, it’s passionate, it’s one of those where they are so apparently mismatched that one knows when they fall, they’re going to fall hard. It’s that sort of anticipation that makes me root for a couple.  

In case you’ve never seen it, the story of Romancing the Stone revolves around a treasure map. Joan’s Columbian brother-in-law sends her a map before he is murdered. More than one bad guy wants the map and the treasure. One set of incompetent crims (which includes Danny DeVito) kidnap Joan’s sister, Elaine, and hold her to ransom while the other bad guy, Zolo, hunts Joan down (he’s the bad, bad guy who murdered her brother-in-law).

I love that Joan is a romance writer, a New York city girl, a little introverted and naïve, too nice for her own good, and holding out for a guy just like the Jesse character she has created. I love her publisher too, Gloria, the woman who cries when reading a romance novel, yet is also an acerbic powerhouse, plus she’s not keen on cats. (Yep, don’t hate me, but I’m not a cat lover—mainly because I’m allergic to them.)

Gloria has one of my favourite lines in the film. When she’s trying to convince the completely unprepared Joan not to go to Columbia to help save her sister, Joan tries to lie and say Elaine needs help with a domestic problem, but Gloria retorts immediately with:

“Elaine’s last domestic problem was finding her husband cut into small pieces.”

This line always makes me laugh.

Anyway, back to my favourite movie couple…

Okay, we’re not talking about Joan’s relationship with her publisher, but Jack T. Colton. He’s a bit of a morally grey hero.

He may share some qualities of Joan’s “beloved Jesse”, namely he’s a bit of a ruggedly handsome adventurer, but that’s where it ends. Unlike Jesse, whom Joan describes as forthright and dependable, Jack is self-serving to the core.

Jack’s trying to make money the quick and easy way to buy a yacht and sail around the world. As he explains to Joan, he’s “into shortcuts.” So, it’s not surprising that he tries to manipulate Joan to steal the map and the treasure, but as always, things don’t quite go according to plan.

Besides the feisty arguments and witty banter, what I like the most about this couple is, while they’re both very different, their relationship and the adventure they experience together makes them change. Joan becomes more confident, and I don’t care what anyone says, she does defeat the bad guy herself, despite calling for help.

As for Jack, his plan to romance the map and the treasure from Joan hits a snag when, of course, he ends up falling for her. Even though he runs off at the end to save his skin and get the stone, he becomes less selfish, not much, just a little. However, his character arc is continued in the second film.

When I first watched this film as a kid, my pre-teen heart swooned when he came back for her (with his boat and crocodile skin boots) and they “sailed” down the streets of New York to their happily ever after.

There’s quite a bit of childhood nostalgia on my part for this couple, and they will always have a special place in my heart. Don’t forget, “the T is for trustworthy”.

Which is your favourite movie or TV couple? Let me know in the comments, then hop over to find out which couple the other bloggers have chosen.