Too Much: Melodrama on Film

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Too Much: Melodrama on Film

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Too Much: Melodrama on Film

Cinema is, by nature, melodramatic.

Beautiful people perform impossible stories, hearts on sleeves as they dance through an artificial world. In a passionate purge of emotion, melodrama employs exaggerated staging, score and performance to create the ultimate spectacle. The stories it tells are intimate and familial, but stakes are high, and characters rarely behave rationally. They are human, after all.

Despite (or because of) its popularity, melodrama has repeatedly been dismissed by critics. They find sincerity confronting, a lack of restraint distasteful. As women through the ages have been told: it’s not right to be so hysterical.

The rare cinematic form concerned with women’s inner lives, these films span infidelity, motherhood and exploitation to capture our hearts and evoke our empathy. The legacy of early ‘women’s pictures’, created for female audiences with their favourite female stars, echoes across generations and around the world. As in life, these women do not always triumph. Imperfectly feminist yet endlessly relatable, their sensationalist struggles carry searing social commentary beneath their glossy veneer.

In the coming months we will embrace the vivid visual language and heightened dramatics of melodrama, inviting you to leave your cynicism at the door and feel something.

Don’t forget your tissues.

Book tickets for two or more of our Melodrama films (excluding Safe + Discussion & Stronger Than Love: ¡Too Much Mexican Melodrama! titles) to receive a discount! Tickets can also be bought separately.

All copy provided by British Film Institute.

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We open 30 minutes before the first showtime of the day.

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All theaters are ADA accessible with wheelchair seating.

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Closed captioning and assistive listening devices are available at the box office.

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