How today’s rom-coms are redefining love stories for a diverse audience

The resurgence of rom-coms highlights the nostalgic appeal of classic films from the ‘90s and early 2000s while introducing modern interpretations; despite evolving audience tastes and industry challenges, romantic comedies remain a beloved genre, reflecting the timeless nature of love in cinema

Every time a romantic movie or show finds favour with the audience, Nobody Wants This, being the latest, there are reams written about the revival of the romantic comedy or rom-com. However, love is as old as the hills and so is love in the movies. It is a genre just like action or westerns, horror or sci-fi. What people are looking for and hailing as the next defining rom-com, is that particular brand of ‘90s and early noughties movie, with Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts being just a girl asking an awkward Hugh Grant to love her.

Those movies, like other iconic films, captured the zeitgeist of the time. Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail (1998), the third of her triptych following When Harry Met Sally... (1989), which she wrote and earned a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay, and Sleepless in Seattle (1993), starred Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as business rivals in an online romance before the internet lost its innocence (if it ever had any to begin with) to predators and other low lives.

Across the Atlantic

On the other side of the pond was Richard Curtis, who apart from co-writing the hilarious Black Adder with Rowan Atkinson, wrote a phenomenal amount of very successful romantic comedies, including Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004). He also wrote and directed the problematic Love Actually (2003) and About Time (2013).

Love Actually is in the sub-genre of Christmas rom-coms — there are other sub-genres such as action rom-coms (Mr and Mrs Smith) and wedding rom-coms (Mamma Mia, naturally). Love Actually is an anthology of 10 love stories with Hugh Grant’s Prime Ministerial romance with a member of his staff and the one between Juliet (Keira Knightley), Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and Mark (Andrew Lincoln) being the creepiest.

The one between John (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page), stand-ins for sex scenes, is sweet but also did not pass the Indian censors.

In Hollywood, romantic comedies kept coming, some were successful and others not for the same reasons most movies work or fail — you cannot ignore good writing.

There are people who felt the Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut crushed rom-coms. That could be said of all genres — there was a time when all the cinemas were showing was quippy superheroes in spandex saving the world from demented megalomaniacs. There was, however, also space for good films to succeed and they did.

This year began with the successful Sydney Sweeney-Glen Powell starrer Anyone But You.

One cannot talk of sexy rom-coms without mentioning Luca Guadagnino’s tennis romantic triangle, Challengers, featuring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist.

A good year

The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling as a stuntman and Emily Blunt as his ex-girlfriend and director, was the best kind of action rom-com, as was the Mark Wahlberg-Halle Berry starrer The Union, but to a lesser degree.

Fly Me to the Moon set during the Space Race of the 1960s features a romance between a marketing executive played by Scarlett Johansson and a NASA launch director (Channing Tatum).

Looking for a superhero film that is also a romance? Look no further than Joker: Folie à Deux where Arthur Fleck/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) and Lee (Lady Gaga) sing of their love for each other and chaos in reimagined big band numbers.

Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse star in Lisa Frankenstein, a reworking of the Frankenstein story, just like Yorgos Lanthimos’ Academy Award-winning Poor Things, featuring Emma Stone. It Ends with Us starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni based on the eponymous Colleen Hoover bestseller dealing as it does with domestic violence, is more a relationship drama rather than a frothy rom-com.

On streaming platforms, there is Nobody Wants This, an unlikely love story between a hot rabbi (Adam Brody) and an agnostic podcaster (Kristen Bell), which is charming even if the said rabbi gets over his perfect ex in less than a New York minute.

Season 4 of Emily in Paris continues with Emily (Lily Collins) and Gabriel’s (Lucas Bravo) will-they, won’t-they romance with Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) being the proverbial nice guy third wheel. A fourth wheel has been added with a hot Italian guy Marcello (Eugenio Franceschini) to spice things up further.

The smartly written My Lady Jane, a Tudor-era rom-com with a big twist, starring Emily Bader and Edward Bluemel was unbridled (pun intended) fun. Also in the historical cubbyhole is Bridgerton, featuring an alternate-Regency era, with season three following ‘Polin’ Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin (Luke Newton).

The dark side

Baby Reindeer and Ripley are darker looks at romance. In the former, Richard Gadd plays a comedian who pays the price for a random act of kindness while the latter, another adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley, finds Andrew Scott as Ripley loving Dickie to death. Scott also starred in the poignant All of Us Strangers, a haunted love story.

There are some rom-com standards — good looking leads, dressed exceedingly well, living in designer homes, doing some sort of arbitrary high-paying job, which gives them enough time to obsess with their charming sharp tongued mates about the crazy little thing called love. Music, either covers of pop music favourites or original songs, plays an important role in the proceedings.

All rom-coms follow the template of meeting, falling in love, the misunderstanding, and the make-up, sometimes with a mad dash to the airport. Obstacles come in the form of wicked exes, or even all-round nice people. As long as there are men, women, and movies, love will be an important part of keeping the wheels turning and the box office ringing. If there is one kind of movie that is dead as a doornail, it is the grand romance seen in the multiple award-winning The English Patient which was on Netflix till recently. No one can match Count Almásy’s (Ralph Fiennes) depth of feeling for the hollow of Katharine Clifton’s (Kristin Scott Thomas) neck.

Published - October 11, 2024 01:53 pm IST