Release me, please: A look at reel life breakups

No one likes getting dumped but if you happen to be the main character in a motion picture, it could be the making of you. Where would we all be if Mark Zuckerberg was not such a hideous git? It simply doesn't bear thinking about.

If The Social Network is to be believed, then Facebook only exists because Zuckerberg was such a monumental turd to his then-girlfriend that she upped and left him. Driven to thoughts of vengeance, he immediately created a Hot Or Not-style website for Harvard students, one that then blossomed into the online behemoth that we know now.

So thank goodness for Zuckerberg's startling lack of basic social niceties. If he had even a sliver of self-awareness, then Facebook would have never even existed. If Zuckerberg hadn't been dumped, none of us would be able to keep in touch with people from school with whom we deliberately lost contact a decade ago, or worse we would, but on MySpace. The thought of that alone should be enough to send shivers down your spine.

In fact, being dumped may be one of the greatest motivational tools in cinema. While you might react to a split by sitting around in your pants all day, crying into a tub of budget ice cream and violently agreeing with everything that Jeremy Kyle has to say, fictional protagonists have a different take. You only see misery, but they see potential for greatness. And, just in case you want proof of this, here are five cast-iron examples that prove the point.

Casablanca (1942)

Perhaps the greatest story of being chucked in all of cinema history. Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine has become an embittered shell of a man since being chucked by Ingrid Bergman in Paris. He's happy to mope around in his Moroccan club, forcing his put-upon pianist to play the theme tune to the Judi Dench sitcom As Time Goes By over and over again, until Bergman waltzes back into his life.

This sight of her snaps Blaine out of his malaise and forces him to do something truly heroic. He sacrifices everything even his own personal well-being to ensure the safety of Bergman and her husband. That heartbreakingly selfless act is what helped to cement Casablanca as one of cinema's most enduring weepies.

Plus, it goes without saying that, once the film has ended, Ingrid Bergman's husband will inevitably become so overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy linked to Bogart's lion-hearted moment of selflessness that he'll throw himself off a building and leave her to spend the rest of her life alone and miserable and constantly mourning her decision to ever put her husband before Blaine. Hooray! Humphrey Bogart wins again!

Legally Blonde (2001)

You might remember Legally Blonde as the best film Reese Witherspoon made before she started chasing Oscars by making films about emotion and crying or maybe you only remember it as the film about the little dog in the cruel-looking outfits but it's also a classic example of drawing greatness from personal torment.

If she hadn't been dumped by boyfriend Warner Huntingdon III, Witherspoon's Elle Woods would have never embarked on the voyage of discovery that ultimately led her to become a hotshot lawyer.

A promising career ignited, a violent murder solved, and a relationship with sturdy but rugged Luke Wilson consummated, and all because she wore clothes so garish and tacky that men were embarrassed to be seen next to her. That's the lesson to take from this wear pink miniskirts whenever possible. You too, girls.

In fact, Elle Woods is one of those characters who can only truly thrive when their hearts have been broken. In Legally Blonde 2: Red White Blonde, she starts and ends the movie in a happy relationship with Luke Wilson, and the film is actively terrible. So perhaps that's also another rule to live by never enter into a relationship with Luke Wilson, because your life will fall to pieces.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

The opening scene to Shaun of the Dead tells you everything that's wrong with the titular hero's life. He's a shuffling, ambitionless shell of a man, ground down by the unstoppable tedium of everyday life to the point where he can barely even rouse the energy to think for himself. This directionless miasma is what leads to Shaun being dumped by his girlfriend, which is partly what inspires the latent heroism inside him.

The other part of that, obviously, is the sudden plague of zombies that threatens to overtake the world. In order to turn his life around completely, Shaun decides to win back his girlfriend by rescuing her.

A rough approximation of this dynamic can be found in Cloverfield, where a young man fends off waves of apocalyptic monsters in order to rescue a girl he's just had a fight with.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)

Now, the victorious dumpee here isn't Uma Thurman: all she manages to do in the throes of her newly single despair is hurl a car into space and lob a badly rendered cartoon shark into Luke Wilson's bedroom.

No, the key character here is Eddie Izzard's Professor Bedlam, who became so enraged when Uma Thurman's G-Girl shunned him as a child that he devotes his entire life to trying to destroy her. But this obsession eventually pays off: touched by all this creepy devotion, Thurman eventually falls right back in love with Izzard and they live happily ever after.

Which just goes to show that if you want somebody to fall in love with you, all you need to do is line the walls of your house with pictures of them and literally try to actually murder them at every turn. Although, on reflection, you probably shouldn't do that. And certainly don't mention my name in any police investigations if you do.

Also, it probably hasn't escaped your attention that this is the second Luke Wilson film I've mentioned. If you have to take one thing away from this article it's that, whatever you do, you absolutely must stay away from Luke Wilson. The man's nothing but trouble, clearly. Seriously, what's his problem?

Broken Flowers (2005)

And finally, a lesson that heroism need not always involve wartime self-sacrifice or educational distinction or grandiose acts of love. Sometimes heroism can also come in smaller and more intimate packages. Take Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers, which begins with Bill Murray's tracksuit-clad Don Johnston being dumped by Julie Delpy.

Eventually, a neighbour tries to help him by convincing him to visit all the girls he has been with in an effort to discover which of them is the mother of his unidentified 19-year-old. It doesn't help much: not even a reminder that he somehow managed to be in relationships with Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy, Tilda Swinton and Sharon Stone can stop Bill Murray from wandering around listlessly.

Where would Bill Murray be if Julie Delpy hadn't dumped him at the start of the film? Chances are he'd be exactly where he ended up anyway plodding around in his tracksuit listening to deliberately jarring jazz with the world's most downbeat expression plastered across his face. But you know what? At least he gave it a shot. Ask yourself this what's worse, failing to be a hero, or never even trying?

Actually, in Murray's case, probably the latter. He didn't really gain anything from his expedition at all, and he would have saved himself all sorts of bother by just staying put. And, in many ways, isn't responding to a dumping by sitting at home all day just as exciting and transformative an experience as, say, inventing Facebook and becoming the youngest billionaire in history? Probably not, no, you're right. Oh well.