Rick's attitude towards love in Casa Blanca

The various takes on “love” in Casa Blanca interested me most in this film. I saw Rick, the owner of Rick’s Café Americain, faced with multiple attitudes towards romantic love as he listened to the stories of other characters and – to my surprise – he displayed a practical and deep love for a woman rather than acting romantically or spontaneously.
In the beginning of the film, Rick seems like a cynical person who holds no tender feelings towards anyone – not even a beautiful woman who wants to spend the evening with him. As more characters are introduced, I discover that Rick’s attitude is the outcome of being hurt by a woman he deeply cared for. As Rick angrily deals with this freshly opened wound when Ilsa returns into his life – but remains out of his reach – he is faced with challenging questions about love and relationships. A young Bulgarian woman asks if it is right to do something ethically wrong for the sake of her love for her husband and a future they might have. There is also an underlying question of whether what Ilsa did was considered an affair if she believed that he husband was dead, and if her husband deserves to know. Rick also sees and rejects Captain Renault’s attitude towards women – which is superficial and physical. The questions that are raised by the characters, mainly “what does a loving relationship look like?”, caused me to think critically and realize that there were no easy answers. I could not guess what Rick’s decision would be because I could not decide for myself how it should all be resolved. Ultimately, Rick chose to disregard his personal rule that he should lookout for no one but himself (“I don’t stick my neck out for anybody”) and he considered Ilsa first. In reflection of Rick’s actions, the Bulgarian woman who needed a visa and even Ilsa in her honesty with her husband, the film rightly left me questioning, “Would I have done the same thing?”