Movie Protganists Who Would Make Terrible Friends

Movie protagonists are supposed to be likable. Particularly in rom-coms. The characters you spend your two hours with have to be charming or sympathetic enough that you’re invested in their search for love and happiness. But sometimes characters are made endearing to watch with traits that in real life, would make them insufferable or exhausting to have as friends. So without further ado, here are three of those characters who you root for when you watch them, but who you would eventually block on Facebook if you actually had the displeasure of knowing them in reality.

Oh, Iris, poor weepy put upon Iris. Over the course of the movie, she gains confidence and self-respect and finally tells the shitty dude she’s been pining over to get lost. So why would she be so terrible to have as a bestie? Well, have you ever had a friend who kept going back to her garbage ex? That’s right. Iris is that friend who calls in the wee hours of the morning sobbing her heart out over the same d-bag you’ve told her she can do better than a thousand times before. But because she’s so delicate and sensitive you keep patiently giving her the same pep talk, and try your best to hide your anger each and every time she totally ignores it. Now some may object to this assessment by pointing out that by the end of the film she’s moved on from him, so problem solved. But you know what, that’s so much worse. Because the movie makes it very clear that she’s been obsessed with this guy for years. That’s years of sympathy you’ve given out to this girl. And how does she finally get over the d-bag? Buy falling madly in love with a guy she’s known for the length of a vacation. That’s just straight up disrespectful.

Now Mark is introduced as a great buddy. He’s super fun, he organizes surprises for his mate that make great stag night stories or are really sweet and thoughtful like the wedding performance. Like Iris, Mark is a victim of romance and finds himself madly in love with someone who’s taken. Taken in this case by his best friend. Now that’s not even the part that makes him a terrible friend. Crushes happen, you can’t help who you have feelings for, and it genuinely must have been super shitty for him. But it’s how he chooses to deal with it that makes him the kind of character you’d hate to hang out with. There’s the obvious fact that he confesses his love to his best friends wife behind said best friends back. But even if he hadn’t done that, his solution to having feelings for his best friends partner for what the movie implies is years, was to be so openly rude to her that both her and his best friend repeatedly comment on the fact that Mark doesn’t like her. You have to wonder what he’d be like if he actually didn’t like the person you’d decided to spend your life with.

Beautiful, sassy, supportive and funny as hell…are all words I would use to describe Liz, Hannah’s best friend who deserves better. Liz is Hannah’s hype man. She boosts her self-esteem, she tries to get her to live a little, and she gives great advice. When Jacob hits on Hannah, Liz encourages her to go for it despite the fact she is also super attracted to him, no jealousy. When Richard offers Hannah a job instead of proposing, Liz knows immediately that this is her breaking point, and is right there with Hannah’s coat and a high five when she storms out to go and screw the guy who again, we know Liz is also crazy attracted to. The fact that Liz is coded as being kind of mean just makes her devotion to Hannah all the more pronounced. She doesn’t have patience for many people, but she’s ride or die for Hannah. How does Hannah repay this friendship? By literally never asking a single question about her life. By leaving and demanding that Liz leaves also when Jacob hits on her that first time when she’s still in a relationship and says she’s not interested. Instead of, I don’t know trying to wingman for your bestie? And the worst part is, once Hannah gets with the perfect guy, that Liz pointed her in the direction of, Hannah totally new-boyfriends her and we never see Liz in the movie again. A real-life friendship with Hannah would be exhausting and one-sided, and would just kind of end once she got a boyfriend.