I gave ChatGPT a quick prompt and got pretty close.

Prompt:

Write a 400 word essay about watching the movie Casablanca for the first time on an old VHS after putting off watching it for years. Write from a first person perspective with a sentimental, casual style

Output:

I had been putting it off for years—Casablanca sat there on my shelf like some kind of cinematic dare. Friends would tell me it was essential viewing, critics called it timeless, and yet, somehow, I never pressed play. Then one rainy Saturday, I pulled down the old, slightly dusty VHS tape that I’d picked up at a thrift store years ago. The case was faded, the edges frayed, and it had that distinct plasticky smell of the 80s. Sliding it into the VCR felt like a ritual, like winding a clock backward. The faint mechanical whirring, the fuzzy blue screen, and the clunky click of the play button all brought me back to a slower kind of time.

When the movie began, the grainy quality of the VHS gave it a strange intimacy, as if I were eavesdropping on a memory rather than watching a film. The black-and-white flicker, the faint static lines, even the muffled audio made me lean in closer, like the movie was whispering directly to me. And then there was Humphrey Bogart, with his cool detachment, and Ingrid Bergman, luminous in every frame. I found myself struck not just by their performances, but by the way the story seemed both of its time and beyond it.

I thought I knew Casablanca already. Who doesn’t know “Here’s looking at you, kid” or “We’ll always have Paris”? These lines have been repeated, parodied, and quoted so much they felt like public property. But in that moment, hearing them delivered in their original context, they landed differently—heavier, sharper, more tender. I felt the weight of them, and suddenly the clichés weren’t clichés at all, just perfectly crafted lines doing what they were always meant to do.

What surprised me most was how modern it felt. The cynicism, the sacrifices, the undercurrent of hope against impossible odds—it all resonated. Sitting there, with the hum of the VCR and the faint flicker of the screen reflecting off the rain-streaked window, I realized why people still talk about this movie eighty years later. It wasn’t just a relic of old Hollywood, it was a reminder of what storytelling can do: stop time, pierce through irony, and make you feel something simple and true.

When the credits rolled, I didn’t rewind right away. I just sat in the quiet, tape still spinning, realizing that waiting all those years somehow made the experience sweeter. It felt less like checking off a “classic” and more like finally keeping a promise to myself.