Film

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

A 1978 French comedy about a husband so desperate to cure his wife's depression that he recruits a lover to help. What starts as absurdist relationship trouble spirals into something tender, strange, and morally messy. It's deadpan about desire and sadness in ways that feel utterly modern. For anyone who likes their romance complicated and their comedy uncomfortable.

TMDb rating3.3

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The Lobster2015

Similarly uses deadpan absurdism to examine love and belonging. A man must find a romantic partner or be turned into an animal. The logic is impossible but the emotional core—loneliness, desperation, compromise—is devastatingly real.

But The tone is so controlled it can feel cold. Some find the repetition and flatness exhausting rather than funny. It's more concept than plot.

The Lobster poster

After Life1999

Hirokazu Koreeda's masterpiece about grief and small redemptions. Like Handkerchiefs, it trusts silences and gentle observation. Characters connect through kindness rather than passion, finding meaning in small gestures.

But Almost nothing happens. It moves at the pace of someone processing loss. If you want narrative momentum, this will frustrate you.

After Life poster

Amélie2001

Whimsical French cinema about misfits trying to fix each other's lives. It has the same playful warmth and the same gentle faith that small acts of love matter, even when grand gestures fail.

But It can feel saccharine in retrospect. The whimsy occasionally overwhelms the actual stakes. Some find it too precious.

Amélie poster

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The Seventh Seal1957

Both films use apparent absurdity—impossible situations treated as ordinary—to arrive at genuine philosophy about human meaning.

Bergman's existential masterpiece feels like the spiritual ancestor of Handkerchiefs: both are about how we distract ourselves from despair, and whether small human connections matter in an indifferent universe. A knight plays chess with Death; a husband tries to cure depression. Same question, different metaphors.

But It's heavy and uncompromising. Black-and-white, subtitled, glacially paced. If you want emotional catharsis, Bergman will not give it to you.

The Seventh Seal poster
More like this (7)

Divorce Italian Style1961

A Sicilian darkly comic masterpiece about a man scheming to escape his marriage. Like Handkerchiefs, it finds human truth in outrageous premises. The satire is vicious but the character work is real.

But It's a product of its era—attitudes toward women are grim. Subtitled. The pacing is deliberate, sometimes plodding.

Divorce Italian Style poster

The Graduate1967

Another film about desire as confusion rather than clarity. A young man seduced by an older woman, then obsessed with her daughter. It captures the desperation of connection-seeking with surprising tenderness.

But The ending is abrupt and feels incomplete. Some find the protagonist too passive to root for. The Simon and Garfunkel score dates it.

The Graduate poster

Paterson2016

Jim Jarmusch's film about a bus driver who writes poetry and lives quietly with his wife. Like Handkerchiefs, it finds profound beauty in ordinary failure and small acts of devotion between people.

But Nothing resolves. It's meditative to the point of inertia. If you want narrative payoff, you will leave disappointed.

Paterson poster

PlayTime1967

Tati's vast, intricate comedy about modernity and human connection. Like Handkerchiefs, it's more interested in observing how people behave than in conventional plot. The warmth sneaks up on you.

But It's nearly three hours long. The humor is visual and subtle; if you miss it you've lost it. The film is deliberately de-centered.

PlayTime poster

Withnail & I1987

Two unemployed actors stumble through London. Like Handkerchiefs, it finds profound affection between people who are fundamentally useless. It's funny and sad in the same breath, without announcing the shift.

But It's a cult film; if the anarchic British humor doesn't land for you, it's just two drunk men complaining. The plot barely exists.

Withnail & I poster

Mon Oncle1958

Both films trust silence and small behavioral details. Neither needs plot momentum. Both suggest that observing how people actually live is more interesting than any story you could impose on them.

Tati's film about an old man and his modernist brother-in-law. No dialogue to speak of, just pure observation of how people navigate each other. It has the same warm, forgiving eye that Handkerchiefs does—funny because it loves its characters too much to judge them.

But There is almost no plot. Long stretches with no dialogue and minimal action. It's a film that requires you to watch rather than listen.

Mon Oncle poster

The Ascent1977

Both films have a deceptively simple setup that gradually reveals itself to be about something else entirely—not plot but the texture of human relationship under pressure.

A Soviet spiritual thriller about two resistance fighters in WW2, shot in agonizing black-and-white. Nothing like Handkerchiefs in tone, but identical in structure: two men, one mission, impossible stakes, and the slow realization that the real story is about what happens between people when everything fails.

But It's bleak and deliberately punishing. Soviet cinema of this era is not easy to watch. The metaphysical weight will exhaust you if you're not ready for it.

The Ascent poster

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