I have a confession: I’m a Titanic superfan who watches the James Cameron film at least once a year. But for the last 10 or so of those viewings, I’ve straight up just skipped the disaster portion of the movie, preferring an alternate reality in which Rose and Jack are still busy planning their future on board a beautiful ship with shiny wooden foyers and un-chipped china place settings. My friends have roasted me about this for quite some time, now, but much to my surprise I just learned Margot Robbie is in the very same camp.
In an interview Robbie did with her Barbie co-star Ryan Gosling, the two discussed movies that made them cry. For Gosling, Elephant Man would be the movie that gets him emotional. Robbie looked at him like he was crazy before agreeing with the interviewer it’s the ending of The Notebook, but that wasn’t the bit that held my attention the most. In fact, it was the next thing she told her former co-star and W Magazine.
I would never not cry in The Notebook. It doesn’t matter how many times I see it; I bawl my eyes out. In fact, when I watch it I stop halfway before it gets to the sad stuff. And Titanic.
Per Robbie, she most certainly stops the latter movie before “the guy hits the propeller” much less before we get to the portion of the film where Jack and Rose could (absolutely) probably have fit on the famous door/bannister together, at least according to James Cameron and science. She doesn’t want to cry or see the sad stuff. Finally! A celebrity after my own heart.
You can see the totally vindicating exchange between her and Gosling, below.
I know I’m not the only person who stops at the sad stuff, as I have a college friend who will watch the first part of A Walk To Remember on occasion, stopping before the really tragic stuff in the Mandy Moore film. But the majority of people I know seem to be watching Titanic for the disaster component and not the love story (or at least both) and if they are throwing on the disaster epic with their Paramount Plus subscriptions they are in for the full three-hour and 15-minute slog.
Given quitting the film before the sad stuff is a topic that has absolutely gotten me roasted on no fewer than a dozen occasions, I feel hopeful there are other people out there in the world who are way more here for dancing in steerage and getting help from the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Fly your freak flag and feel free to cut out before any number of tragic moments involving men staying behind on board, pets not making it, flailing lifeboats, and orchestras playing until the bitter end.
It’s a great movie, James Cameron, but for Margot Robbie and I, we’re gonna just stick with the good stuff. Also, not gonna lie. It’s a great call to just skip the last few minutes of The Notebook on re-watch, too. Gonna add that to my list of movies I start every year and fail to finish, and I’m absolutely not judging if you do too.