the death of (good) rom-coms

please start taking romantic comedies seriously

It feels like every year a new rom-com release with two very famous and attractive leads gets announced, and it’s all you hear about for a couple months. It’s promised to be a very good rom-com and apparently the leads have very good chemistry. There is lots of anticipation and enthusiasm surrounding the film. It finally comes out, and I see so many reviews saying this is the rom-com renaissance we have been waiting for, and the twitter people (or x, or whatever you call that evil) keep saying “we are so back!”. This is exciting, it seems to be getting positive reactions, so I force someone to go see it in theaters with me and… it’s not good?

Now, one thing about is me that I love a good rom-com. I also love watching films that I don’t take very seriously. Yes, sometimes you watch a movie just to watch a movie, I love winding down with a feel-good movie after a long day, and I don’t necessarily want to think about the artistic value of said movie, which could be the case for many people watching rom-coms. I get that, but also can’t a movie be silly and good at the same time?

The answer is yes of course, and there are a lot of rom-coms that are actually good, 10 Things I hate About You, 13 Going on 30, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Clueless and Down with Love are some of my favorites. But they’re all classics, and a bit old, so we’ve all seen them. I struggle to find new films that make me feel as these did.

I am the biggest hater of the phrase ‘let people enjoy things’. The internet likes to throw this around when someone tries to give an ounce of a critique to a beloved movie/show/book whatever. I don’t think we should let people enjoy things actually. Why are we mindlessly watching films, without a single critical thought anyway? Even if it is a silly feel-good movie, I should expect it to be good art, and I have the right and the capabilities to analyze it. And I will, because I take that film seriously. I think this is the biggest problem with the rom-coms coming out today, is that they don’t take me, the viewer, seriously.

(I’m not even going to get into the fact that the main audience for rom-coms is young women, or that media literacy is at an all time low, because these also have an impact on the way these movies are written, but that’s another essay on its own.)

It’s always the exposition filled dialogue. I don’t need you to tell me the backstory of the main characters within the first 10 minutes of the film in a very unnatural conversation between them and their quirky best friend. It’s not convincing, it’s not realistic, and honestly it’s lazy. You can show me that this character has insecurities from a past relationship, instead of giving him a line that says “I still have trauma from my ex that I broke up with 2 years ago but can’t seem to get over because she cheated on me, which was my biggest fear!”. A movie with a line like that thinks I’m stupid, doesn’t take me seriously, and doesn’t trust me to understand nuance. So why would I take it seriously?

The situation that I talked about at the very beginning, happened to me with a lot of movies that came out recently, like Something from Tiffany’s, The Idea of You, Your Place or Mine, but my tipping point was Anyone but You. These movies are not necessarily bad, and I actually enjoyed watching them, but they’re devoid of any originality or emotion and all have very bad dialogues that really take me out of the experience. Please watch this scene from Anyone but You with all this in mind, it honestly sounds like AI (plus GaTa who plays Glen Powell’s best friend is a really bad actor which adds to it). It seriously made me want to walk out of the theater.

I’m hoping that we can all raise our standards when it comes to rom-coms and stop settling for the bad ones. They’re probably paying the marketing team more than the writers, and it shows.

Of course, this doesn’t mean there aren’t any good romantic comedies coming out, and I can’t just write this whole rant and then not give you some recommendations. Here are some of my favorite rom-coms that came out in the last 10 years:

Rye Lane: This movie is so fresh and different and also so fun! The characters are very charming, the story is great, and the writing is even better. It’s everything I want a rom-com to be.

Crazy Rich Asians: I mean this is such a classic that I feel kind of silly recommending it. But if you haven’t seen it, this is your sign.

Palm Springs: I’m not the biggest fan of the groundhog day situation, but this is a fun and clever take on it.

Set It Up: How do both of the main actors have a more popular rom-com (that I mentioned above) when this movie is just so much better?

No Hard Feelings: This is stupid, and it’s really fun.

Bottoms: Is this a rom-com? Technically it’s not, but it also technically could be one? All you need to know is that it’s a must-watch.

thank you for reading! and i’m sorry if i bashed on movies that you liked, but had to get this off my chest

also, i recently hit 100 subscribers, thank you so much again! so excited to have you all here ♡

let me know what you think of these movies i talked about, and of course i’m open to your recommendations as well! see you soon :)

love, asli