This is one of my favorite movies, if not my absolute favorite.

I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s yesterday afternoon for the first time in several years. The opening credits alone had me crying. It's because of Moon River. Such a sad and beautiful song. For me, it's personified by Audrey strumming it on her guitar with tears in her eyes, unknowingly watched by the upstairs neighbor that wants desperately to love her.

I had always adored this film it for its humor, the grace Hepburn exudes, the romance, the glamorous costumes, and the cosmopolitan fantasy of New York that it presents. But, like so many of my old favorites, as I grow older it grows with me. There are facets of it I appreciate now in ways I never could have before.

Holly’s vulnerability is apparent throughout the film, though she tries to put on a self-assured face. As her manager says, she is a phony. But she’s a “real phony.” She cops to the fact that she’s scared.

Holly Golightly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul Varjak: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?

When I saw this movie at 15, at 20, these lines meant something to me. But not nearly as much as they do now.

It gets to me, more than any other time, in the last scenes. Holly puts Cat out into the rainy alley from the taxi, insisting that she belongs to no one and no one belongs to her. Paul stops the cab to go back for Cat, tossing the sentimental token he'd been carrying for so many months back at Holly, saying that he didn't want it anymore. He says many other things to her, about the cage she has created for herself, and that running away won’t help—because she’ll always be there in the end.

It is at this moment that she realizes her mistake. Desperately, she tries to find Cat in the alley while Paul stands watching. Having no luck, she looks up at him. I never noticed before, the expression on her face in that scene. It is like she woke up. She’s looking at Paul like she just found him. Then she spies her pet, and much hugging and crying ensues between her and Paul and the very soggy Cat as they all stand in the rain.

At this point, I’m bawling.

I know how corny it is. I know how corny all those movies are. I know I’m a sap for getting so wrapped up in them. But I can’t help it. I love happy endings.

It’s just that the older I get, the more the happy endings make me sad.