The Way We Were is a 1973 romantic drama film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. Screenwriter Arthur Laurents adapted his own novel of the same title.
Spanning some twenty years starting prior to World War II and ending in the late 1950s, the film tells the doomed love story of Katie Morosky (Streisand) and Hubbell Gardiner (Redford). It has love, tears, and communism — what more could one want?
A big box-office hit, the film also earned Academy Awards for Marvin Hamlisch's music score and for its Title Theme Tune performed by Streisand (which became a Billboard #1 hit).
This film provides examples of:
- Betty and Veronica: With Hubbell as Archie, Katie as Betty (though there is a switch at some point), and Carol Ann (Lois Chiles) as Veronica. This dynamic in the film was discussed at length in Sex and the City, with Carrie comparing herself to Katie, "the strange girl", and Natasha, Big's wife, to "the regular girl".
- Bittersweet Ending: Unable to reconcile their differences, Katie and Hubbell divorce. Years later, Katie and Hubbell meet by chance in front of the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Katie has since remarried and is continuing her activist work, while Hubbell is now seeing another woman and writing for a television show. After a brief, friendly reunion, Katie and Hubbell share a tender, bittersweet hug and farewell before parting ways forever, with only the memories of the way they were...
- Did Not Get the Girl: Katie and Hubbell don't end up together.
- Jews Love to Argue: The Jewish Katie is nothing if not hot headed.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Eventually subverted. Katie pulls Hubbell from his complacence and encourages his creativity. However, she has many goals of her own, one of the many reasons they eventually don't work out. Hubbell ends up with a woman who doesn't push him the same way and seems very happy about it.
- Princely Young Man: Hubbell, to a great extent.
- Red Scare: Katie's political views are met with disdain – and eventually Hubbell is at risk of getting blacklisted due to his relationship with her. Katie invokes this in her big speech, asking the agitated students why they are so afraid of the USSR when the real threat is fascism.
- Signature Line: "Your girl is lovely, Hubbell."
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Hubbell spends most of the film going up and down this scale, whereas Katie is a hardcore idealist.
- Stepford Smiler: Hubbell. It drives Katie mad.
- Soapbox Sadie: Katie is viewed as this (including by Hubbell at first), but the trope is mostly subverted, as Katie is an ardent Marxist and doesn't arbitrarily pick her causes. (She even has a picture of Stalin on the wall at one point!) She does enjoy shocking people, however, and she's quick to pick up the banner for a just cause.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Katie and Hubbell.
- Tsundere: Katie might be the OG one. She and Hubbell share a great deal of vitriol... and sexual tension.
- White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: Hubbell is as WASP-y as they come, and is surrounded by a multitude of boating rich kids and other country club crowds.
