Whether you are just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her; or delivering the ‘I like you’ speech ‘just the way you are’, there are of course fundamental ingredients which together create the best romantic comedies of all time.
Potential ingredients include but are not limited to: complete disillusion, irritating disagreement, undeniable pining, classic meet-cutes and love confessions in the snow (with or without clothing other than your leopard print knickers – yes Bridget, I’m looking at you).
And whilst the 1990’s and early 2000’s have brought us movie-lovers all we could ever want out of the favourable rom-com genre, maybe we are overlooking some potential rom-com classics of recent years, and if anything they are just giving us more content for our romantic selves to cry at.
Take “When Harry Met Sally”, one of the best romantic comedies to hit our screens. This film is the definition of what a romantic comedy is: strangers, to disliked acquaintances to best friends to lovers. From defying all odds that romance and sex ruins heterosexual friendships, until of course it does… and they become more.
Or maybe your favourite is “Notting Hill” … everybody in Beverly Hills knows her name, but even his mother forgets his. Notting Hill is – drum roll please – my all time favourite film, no exceptions and no objections. Perhaps it’s Hugh Grant’s whimsical hair (or Julia Roberts’ actually), the picturesque London scenery only my Pinterest can match, the public love confession or his house-mate’s strip tease that simply make it the epitome of comedy, and which is why it’s constantly returned to.
“There has been such a worry that our beloved genre has quickly become all rom and no com. And that they’ll never live up to the forefathers which stand before them.”
But there is no reason why we can’t love modern romantic comedies just the same! There has been such a worry that our beloved genre has quickly become all rom and no com. And that they’ll never live up to the forefathers which stand before them. But if we give them a chance, we too, will be falling head over heels.
‘Red, White and Royal Blue’, first released on Amazon Prime in August 2023, became the romcom of the summer, if not the romcom of the year, full of banter and intimacy that all the originals are made of. The heated romance between Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the American President, and Britain’s Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), is fun and forbidden. And the film soon became, in the words of GLAAD’s Vice President of Communications and Talent Anthony Allen Ramos, “the streamer’s third most-watched romantic comedy ever and that the memberships to the platform have spiked related to its premiere.” surpassing the classics and becoming an all time favourite for representing same-sex relationships in the centre of the screen.
But if soulmates is what you are looking for, or if you are a good fan of 2001 ‘Serendipity’, then ‘Love at First Sight’ is the one for you! Star crossed strangers, NYU student Hadley and mathematician Oliver, living in different continents are brought together through nature’s destiny (or statistics) by a dead phone, a missed plane and a broken seat belt. Classic meet-cute! Whilst this may be a recent contribution to the genre, there is no reason it should not be up there standing proud.
The will-they-won’t-they plotline of wondering if they’ll ever bump into each other, despite it taking place only over twenty-four hours, confirms the basic idea that soulmates will find each other no matter the odds. But ‘Love at First Sight’ adds the complexity in modern romances of conflicting factors like dysfunctional families and mourning those you love. One IMBd reviewer said “Love At First Sight is as generic as rom coms can be, reaffirming that something incredibly formulaic still works when executed with heart. It’s a fairytale romcom for the modern age,” so can we call it a classic romantic comedy? Yes. Why? Because it takes the charm and the romance of what we have seen before, into an emotional and relative storyline which has rarely been matched.
“The heart-warming vibes of our classics are, arguably unmatched and unbeatable, but this palpable tension can be repeated, we just need to open our minds..
So, can we really call this the demise of the romcom genre? Or are we as audience members just needing to adjust to the idea of classics being inspiration to represent a modern world in film? The heart-warming vibes of our classics are, arguably unmatched and unbeatable, but this palpable tension can be repeated, we just need to open our minds.
Like ‘Set It Up’ for example, where two overqualified and underappreciated assistants set up their bosses so they can finally have a day off, but inevitably fall in love themselves. Predicable right? No, the comedy lies in the satire of a boss’s rule and demands, the idea that assistants do in fact, run around like headless chickens just to keep their jobs. But the romance comes in slapstick chemistry and quick wit in modern humour that makes it so appealing to us.
And finally, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ follows the well-loved rags-to-riches Cinderella storyline, in a way never seen before by effortlessly incorporating the lavish Singaporean lifestyle and celebrating Asian culture, finally represented in Hollywood by an all Asian cast. Rachel (Constance Wu) suddenly learns of her boyfriend’s elite generational wealth, involving much expensive jewellery. Whilst this romantic comedy, like all others, is the perfect fantasy, its themes of ‘crazy rich’ extravagance, nationality and systemic social injustices of ‘you’ll-never-be-good-enough-for-my-son’ makes it a romantic comedy which we all should delve into, and inevitably, become unapologetically in love with.
So yes, we may never see a female love interest as ditzy and daft as Bridget Jones (Bridget Jones’s Diary). But we don’t need two; Renée Zellweger keeps us entertained enough as it is. We may never fall faster than when we are watching Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey trick each other into love (How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days), and we might never want anyone but Health Ledger to be paid by the school’s heart-throb to take out the girl with an icy demeanour (10 Things I Hate About You). But that is more than fine, we can love the classics as much as we want to, and that doesn’t diminish the endless variety of romantic comedies we are able to enjoy today.
AMELIA CROPLEY
Featured image courtesy of Sunica Markovic via Flickr. Image use license found here . No changes were made to this image.
Featured image courtesy of Unification France via Flickr. Image use license found here . No changes were made to this image.
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