12 Wrong Movie Mr Rights
They look all right to begin with...
It's hard enough bagging that perfect guy in the real world.
But, really, when even the ones that Hollywood dream up for us are a few spanners short of a toolbox, it's fair to say things are pretty bleak.
Sure, they look nice and shiny enough on the outside (sometimes literally), all metrosexual and well-mannered. But beneath their Mr Perfect, Mr Poised, Mr Practical veneer, there lurks a whole world of horror...
Edward Cullen ( Twilight )
Mr Wrong? Apart from the obvious (um, he’s dead), Edward obviously spends far too long grooming himself (have you seen his hair? In fact, has Edward? Do vampires have reflections in the Twiverse?), and stalks love interest Bella to the point of, well, stalking .
If He Carries On Like This… Staking. Clean, simple, remarkably effective.
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Jamal Malik ( Slumdog Millionaire )
Mr Wrong? Talk about obsessive – you go through the long, excruciatingly drawn-out process of applying to be on a TV game show, waiting months to get an answer, another month to audition, then several more weeks before anybody tells you you’ve been successfully selected... Just to find some chick?
Say it with me: “I don’t need a girlfriend, I need a Wii. Wii good, girls bad...”
If He Carries On Like This… Jamal, now with-girl, attempts to prove his love by appearing on each nation’s Big Brother , before eating spiders and kangaroo conkers on I’m A Celebrity...
Next: Harry, Shrek [page-break]
Harry ( When Harry Met Sally )
Mr Wrong? He’s interested, he’s not interested, he’s interested, he’s not interested... Also, why is he always there for Sally to bump into just when she needs him the most?
If He Carries On Like This… Restraining order.
Shrek ( Shrek )
Mr Wrong? He’s an ogre. He lives in a swamp. ‘Nuff said.
If He Carries On Like This… He'll live unhappily ever after.
Next: Mr Big, Melvin Udall [page-break]
Mr Big ( Sex and the City )
Mr Wrong? Sex, ahem, six years’ worth of break ups and make-ups, and the guy still leaves you at the altar? Call us old-fashioned, but that’s plain cold.
Mr Big is the cause of pretty much every single one of supposed love Carrie’s mental breakdowns; he marries a woman ten years younger than her, then has the gall to have an affair with Carrie while still married, essentially destroying the columnist's previously happy relationship with the lovely Aidan. Mr Pig, say we.
If He Carries On Like This… We'll set ball-crusher Samantha on him. That'll put the fear of God up any man worth his salt.
Melvin Udall ( As Good As It Gets )
Mr Wrong? Tricky one. Melvin starts out looking like a Mr Wrong (rude, mean, spiteful), but morphs into an unconventional Mr Right. Still, he bears all the hallmarks of definite Wrongness.
Racist, homophobic, bigoted, misanthropic and hostile as a hornet on a hot summer’s day. He also likes to keep things very, very clean.
If He Carries On Like This… “Not tonight honey, I’ve got to vacuum the stairs, and the bathroom, and the dog, and the house next door,” becomes a well-worn phrase in the Udall household.
Next: Clark Kent, Mark Darcy [page-break]
Clark Kent/Superman ( Superman Returns )
Mr Wrong? You can’t get more right than a selfless superhero intent on saving the world, right? WRONG. First dear old Clarky gets you up the duff, then he disappears off into space for five years to “find himself” (we’ve all heard that one before).
If that isn’t enough, when he finally gets back from his travels, he uses his super powers to spy on you and tries to steal you away from your loving husband. Superheroes, they think they can do anything, don’t they?
If He Carries On Like This… It's Kryptonite pants for all.
Mark Darcy ( Bridget Jones’s Diary )
Mr Wrong? Stupidly loyal to his mother (to the extent that he’s happy degrading himself with novelty Christmas jumpers just to keep her happy; hello Freud?), passively aggressive, Darcy’s main fault is that he actually likes Bridget, despite her naggy, plummy, whiney, self-obsessed qualities. Mother issues? Come on man, grow a pair.
If He Carries On Like This… He’s one stuffed animal and a flowery dress away from being a modern-day Norman Bates.
Next: Rick Blaine, Jack [page-break]
Rick Blaine ( Casablanca )
Mr Wrong? Bitter and cynical, Rick is a bona fide booze-glugging moper. When lover Ilsa chose her husband over him (the thought!), Rick holed up in Morocco rather than a) fight for her, b) find somebody else, or c) buy a dog.
Also, Rick’s a stickler for torture – how many times is he really going to get Sam to play that ruddy song? Who wants somebody who lives perpetually in the past?
If He Carries On Like This… We’ll be on the first plane outta here.
Jack ( Titanic )
Mr Wrong? Jack’s supposed roguish charm actually just makes him a rogue. Spitting, smoking in excess, stealing another man’s bird and bedding her in (of all things) the back seat of a car, Jack is a vagrant through and through. And we haven’t even started on his cleanliness problem (have you seen those fingernails?!).
If He Carries On Like This… He’ll probably end up dead. Oh...
Next: George Bailey, Edward Lewis [page-break]
George Bailey ( It’s A Wonderful Life )
Mr Wrong? Talk about a quitter. When things get a bit rough, George favours suicide over talking out his problems or scribbling a nice little brainstorm diagram to figure out his options. What next?
If it really takes an angel to show this guy what he’s got, we’d rather he weren’t around.
If He Carries On Like This… A button pops off George's shirt, prompting yet another deep depression and a bridge-side suicide. This time he jumps.
Edward Lewis ( Pretty Woman )
Mr Wrong? He hires prostitutes. He thinks money can buy him anything. He can only relate to people on a businessman-like level. He turns a woman into a living doll.
Above all, he makes all men in the world believe that hookers look just like Julia Roberts, which frankly isn’t true (as far as we know).
If He Carries On Like This… Something involving a gerbil?
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Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.
