Similarly, Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird and Frances Ha refuse to center a singular romantic plot. Instead, romance is one current among many—friendship, family, economic precarity. The protagonist’s boyfriends are not soulmates or villains; they are stepping stones in self-definition. The painful breakup is not a tragedy to be avenged but a lesson in one’s own capacity for cruelty or neediness. The question is not “will they end up together?” but “who will they become through these collisions?”