Girlie flick alert! If you want to sit down on a rainy Sunday afternoon with a tub of chocolate ice cream, a mug of cocoa and a box of tissues, this is the film for you.

Playboy, Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant) is engaged to a millionaire and Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) is engaged to a rich business man. They meet aboard a luxury cruise crossing the Atlantic. Discovering a mutual appreciation of pink champagne, swimming and Nickie’s grandmother, they fall in love.

They agree that they will both break off their engagements and look for jobs in order to earn enough money to marry, as neither of them is wealthy in their own right. They will then meet in six months time at 5.00 pm on the top of the Empire State Building and will marry each other.

Half a year later and Nickie is awaiting his beloved up in the sky. Terry is running late and she dashes across the road looking up at where her lover is waiting; it is the ‘closest place to heaven’. Then, tragedy strikes as our lacking in road-sense heroine forgets to stop, look and listen and is knocked down and paralysed from the waist down. (Get that family sized pack of Kleenex ready…) Nickie is left waiting until midnight and eventually leaves, despondent, assuming that Terry has changed her mind about becoming his wife.

Terry’s ex-fiance remains her friend and one night while taking Terry on a trip to the ballet they bump into Nickie. They barely speak and it is obvious that Nickie comes to the conclusion that she has married someone else. It seems that all is now lost for our love struck couple. Terry refuses to let Nickie know the truth, as what kind of wife would she be for him if she couldn’t walk? (This is a 1957 film after all and it seems that Terry believes her role in life to provide her husband with sexual pleasure and children).

However, without spoiling the rest of the film, I can assure you that you will not be utterly d
esolate by the end. Our couple do walk (well, Nickie does) off into the sunset and you can experience complete catharsis in the final moments when you will be smiling and crying simultaneously.

It may be thought that this film was sponsored by a tissue manufacturer in order to boost sales but it is also uplifting and you will be left with a warm feeling inside (not just from the aforementioned cocoa).

This film is ‘the closest place of heaven’.