Jack and Sally’s “love story” really isn’t that romantic.
To preface the following, let me just say that I love Nightmare Before Christmas. I love almost anything Tim Burton does really. This isn’t to say that it’s a bad movie at all.
So, I’ve seen a lot of NBC merchandise with Jack and Sally embracing on top of the pumpkin patch hill with the words “simply meant to be” on it. In fact, a lot of the NBC merchandise is based on them as a couple in general. But the truth is, the progression of their relationship in the movie didn’t make a lot of sense and wasn’t really romantic at all.
If my memory is accurate (and I’ve watched this movie many times so I think it is), Jack and Sally only interact like five times in the entire movie, two of those times very briefly. And I understand that this was never meant to be a romantic movie and that’s great. Not every movie has to have romance and romance never has to be the main plot of the movie. But then the way the movie ended doesn’t really make sense.
Yes, Sally is pining over Jack for the majority of her screen time. She’s also shown trying to gain her freedom from her creator, which is fantastic, but then she just goes straight to Jack. From the very beginning, we see her watching Jack with metaphorical heart eyes and sympathizing with his song but Jack doesn’t know she’s there. He’s so wrapped up in his own unhappiness, and later in his plans for Christmas, that he doesn’t even acknowledge her until she’s tapping at his window with a gift basket. He’d even been at her house before that, talking to the scientist, and he didn’t once ask “Hey, where’s Sally?” No, the gift basket scene is the first time he even looks at her in the movie. Sure, he seems happy to see her and gladly accepts the basket, but then they still don’t even say a word to each other because Sally runs off.
They don’t interact again until Jack is completely wrapped up in his plans and is assigning roles to everyone. When her turn comes, she tries to tell him that she had a premonition about his plans going wrong. And he completely brushes her off, doesn’t listen to a word she says, and pushes her to do what he wants even though she clearly doesn’t want to do it. Yes, he compliments her but, in the context, he almost comes across as just flattering her to get his way. The next (3rd) time they interact is when she’s fitting him for his Santa suit, and she tries again to tell him that what he’s doing isn’t a good idea. Once again, he completely ignores everything she’s saying; too wrapped up in himself.
He proceeds to go off and carry out his ill-advised plan, and she’s left to undo all his mistakes and fix everything. When her and Santa are in danger, Jack shows up to save them by defeating Oogie Boogie, but once he wins, he goes to talk to Santa first. He apologizes to Santa and Santa tells him that he should have listened to Sally from the beginning. Only once Santa is gone do they speak and it’s just for a moment, but it’s then that Jack audibly realizes how much Sally has done for him and that he likes her as more than a friend. Then they’re interrupted by the Mayor and go back to the main part of the city.
Jack gets caught up in everyone celebrating his return that he totally forgets about Sally until he sees the scientist with a new creation. Only then does he see that Sally is leaving and follows her. This leads to the big romantic ending where he sings “My dearest friend, if you don’t mind, I’d like to join you by your side. Where we can gaze upon the sky and sit together, now and forever. For it is plain as anyone can see, we’re simply meant to be.”
Like, what?! Jack just realized he liked her two minutes ago. Now suddenly they’re declaring that they will be together forever because they’re so obviously soulmates, destined to be together? Where did that come from?
It’s also worth noting that Jack never apologizes to Sally for all the shit he put her through. She almost died trying to fix the mistakes she warned him not to make in the first place. And he doesn’t apologize for ignoring her or anything.
Again, I know this was never meant to be a romance movie, but then why is the end of the movie some big romantic climax?
Their romance can be summarized as “girl does anything she can to get a boy’s attention and it works! All she had to do was risk her life for a guy who ignored her.”
And this is a bit of a tangent, but Jack absolutely would have made a great asexual/aromantic character! Right after the opening musical number, a bunch of women are flirting with him and he’s trying to be polite but he’s also backing away as much as he can and runs the second they’re not looking. He spends the majority of the movie focused on his goals and his responsibilities as pumpkin king. He shows no interest in anyone until that final scene on the hilltop. And that would have been okay!
The way they made it, the end romance seems sudden and kinda forced. It’s not a good relationship story at all.
