Movies give people catharsis which is when the story causes them to think about real life memories in a way that makes them feel good. The experience of that is what movies sell to the audience. For instance when you watch brave the story is actually not very well structured at all. But in the 3rd act there is a series of emotional payoffs centered around the hero’s mending her relationship with her mom. When it happens it makes one feel good by remembering one’s own mom. This experience pattern of rift with the feminine and reconnection is being packaged into the Brave pattern and then sold to the audience as something to empathically decode as they watch it.

Catharsis never feels bad. When you see Oedipus Rex, you understand that that isn’t you - it leaves you with a feeling of “could that be me?”. Then, you resolve that in reality by acting such as to avoid that outcome. The catharsis comes from that certainty that Oedipus is in fact not you and remains fictional. That’s bc it is a tragedy. When it is a “comedy” such as Brave, the opposite is entailed and it makes you want to be the hero and have that outcome. It is pattern encoding for transformation of reality. 
