Love is a many-splendored factor, particularly if you’re gawking at it from the skin. On this column, we’ll be analyzing the movie star {couples} that give us hope for our personal romantic futures and making an attempt to be taught what we will from their well-documented bonds.

There’s an element in Nora Ephron’s semi-autobiographical 1983 novel Heartburn that I’ve all the time beloved. Contemporary off the invention that her husband is dishonest on her, Rachel Samstat desperately asks her buddy Julie (who’s additionally beforehand withstood her husband’s extramarital affair) what to do. “We hold on, and if it doesn’t work, we attempt once more with the subsequent one,” Julie responds.

Whereas some could contemplate that angle cynical, I’ve all the time discovered it type of romantic. What may very well be extra earnest and charming than accepting the state of your marriage in all its flaws and upsets, after which really selecting to provide it one other shot with another person? Hope springs everlasting, as they are saying!

I considered this Ephronism instantly after I noticed Beef star Ali Wong and Barry’s Invoice Hader cozying up on the 81st annual Golden Globe Awards on Sunday night time. Wong is, fairly famously, lately divorced from ex-husband Justin Hakuta, and Hader and his ex-wife Maggie Carey break up up virtually six years in the past. Each Wong and Hader have daughters from their earlier relationships (two for Wong, three for Hader), and whereas this complete mess of divorces and custody could be advanced, I’m so on board with their love.

Clearly, romance is a hell of loads simpler when all events are single, unencumbered, and never making an attempt to determine who left their child’s favourite stuffed animal at McDonald’s on the drive house, however there’s one thing time-tested (and possibly much more actual?) about two divorced mother and father of younger kids making it work amid all of the chaos. Earlier than getting collectively final spring, Wong and Hader really briefly dated in 2022 after assembly a number of years prior, and listening to Hader check with Wong as his girlfriend—as he did in a latest interview with Individuals—is giving me a power case of middle-school mind. I wish to write their names on my planner and draw hearts round them!