On down days when no amount of support and comfort from our loved ones are enough to brighten the day, it’s recommended to take a breather in life. Sometimes, it only takes 90 minutes of escapism to get that little push from the heart and the leap of faith to get us through the day. I decided to create this short list for the shy-at-heart who need the motivation to take a risk and the ones feeling gloomy who need someone by their side, even if they are fictional.

3 Uplifting Dramas

Romantics Anonymous

This movie is about two people who are too shy to express who they really are. Angelique is a chocolatier who wanted to apply to be a chocolate maker and participates in a support group for social anxiety. Jean-Rene is the chocolate store owner whose business is losing patronage due to their old-fashioned and simple line of chocolates. He also suffers social anxiety and takes therapy.

Due to misunderstandings brought up by their ineptitude for communication, Angelique is mistakenly hired as a sales representative. But that isn’t going to stop her from trying to save the business with her chocolatier expertise and finding love amidst her timidity.

You can find this one on Amazon Prime.

Algernon ni Hanabata o (Flowers for Algernon)

This 10 episode series is a Japanese adaptation of the classic book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Sakuto is 29-year-old man with the intelligence of a six-year-old, but he’s studying really hard to become intelligent so he can go convince his mother to take him back when his custody was given to a flower shop that offers employment to juvenile delinquents. Then comes along Professor Hachisuka, a researcher for brain physiology who offers Sakuto a chance to become intelligent through an experimental surgery process that received successful results on a rat named Algernon.

Though some details and characters have been added, it does not deteriorate the brilliance of the book but rather expresses more the complexity of human relationships and limitations of intelligence though the Japanese sense of bittersweet realism and sentimentality we’ve read in Japanese literature and its movie adaptations.

This title is a little harder to find with English subtitles, but I believe someone put some episodes up on Youtube.

Where Do We Go Now?

A little-unnamed town is surrounded by land mines and the only way in and out of the town is through a bridge. This town is also inhabited by both Muslims and Christians who un-peacefully live together in un-harmony. The women try to keep the strife and fighting down by hilarious means such as drugging their men to hide their weapons and hiring dancers to keep them distracted. It’s funny, poignant and uplifting. Though the plot runs along the sensitive topic of religion, it’s really more on finding your place between tradition and modernism.

Where Do We Go Now is available for rent on Amazon.

What movies lift you up? Sound off in the comments…

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