Rom-com survival shows audience desire for fantasy of happy endings
Valentine’s Day famously marks a time of love and affection, and Cupid’s season brings a classic movie genre: romantic comedies, better known as rom-coms. These movies have gained a reputation for being cheesy and unrealistic. However, if done well, rom-coms can fill the hearts of viewers, making them both laugh and swoon. To fully understand what differentiates a great rom-com from the tasteless ones out there, it is vital to investigate some of the most recent successful films from the genre. The answer, unsurprisingly, stems from many sources.
Most rom-coms follow a similar concept. Protagonists meet and fall in love amidst comic mishaps, witty banter, and some overarching conflict. Naturally, all is resolved in the end and the love-struck couple lives happily ever after. While some people prefer more intensive, thought provoking films, rom-coms stand out because of their upbeat plot and guaranteed happy endings.
Some of the best rom coms out there were released during the 1990’s. These include timeless classics such as Clueless, Sleepless in Seattle, and 10 Things I Hate About You.
Clueless follows Cher, a shallow rich girl who, with the help of her best friend, tries to play matchmaker with students and teachers alike. In this movie, she navigates the ups and downs of teen life and finds a romance of her own in an unexpected place. Though the movie has been questioned for its rather problematic love interest– Cher’s own ex-stepbrother– the movie still stands as a funny and interesting glimpse of high school life. Cher is an enduring protagonist as viewers find she transcends her shallow reputation as there is far more to her than meets the eye.
The 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle sees a somewhat wild plot: following the death of his wife, protagonist Sam calls in on a radio talk show to open up about the recent death and a woman named Anne hears this program on the radio. Despite the fact she is engaged, she writes him a letter asking him to meet her on the roof of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day. The movie is sweet and there is something distinctively magical about it.
Lastly, 10 Things I Hate About You, released in 1999, is considered one of the greatest rom-coms. Loosely based on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, it follows rebellious Kat and her outgoing younger sister, Bianca. When their dad decides that Bianca cannot date until Kat does, Bianca sets her sister up and in the end, both sisters find love. The relationship between Kat and Patrick remains one of the best examples of the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope. Between Kat’s spunky attitude and her moving poem scene when she realizes she is in love, she presents a flawed yet likeable protagonist.
There are some connections amongst these movies. First of all, they are effortlessly funny. Many of the cheesy rom-coms seen today riff off of unfunny jokes that just feel forced. Second, the acting is phenomenal. When done right, rom-coms are supposed to make viewers laugh and maybe even tear up. With some rom-coms, poor acting leads to a lack of chemistry and likeability between protagonists. Without likeable characters, movies, especially ones of this nature, simply become hard to watch. Nowadays, movies of this genre often rely very heavily on tropes, making them feel dull and uninspired. True, some of the great rom-coms follow tropes, for example, enemies-to-lovers in the case of 10 Things I Hate About You or strangers-to-lovers in the case of Sleepless in Seattle. However, these movies add interesting subplots and their own unique take on the trope to avoid it falling into the endless void of forgettable movies.
All of this is not to say that the 1990’s witnessed the end of good rom-coms and that nothing good has come out of this genre since then. In fact, there are important facets that have changed about such movies. Older movies famously do not showcase a lot of diversity and the rom com genre is one of the biggest examples of this. Luckily, in the past few decades, there has been a massive jump in the diversity seen on the screen. Nowadays, there are rom-coms that feature couples of all different backgrounds. Additionally, plotlines of these older movies were definitely questionable, like the aforementioned romance between Cher and her ex-stepbrother. The knowledge that such plotlines would not fly today means that rom coms are becoming continually less problematic. More recent classics have also emerged. Released in 2017 and based on the the book of the same name, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was a massive success, with two sequels and a whole spin off show. 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians was a box-office hit. With movies like these, the genre has still occasionally found the success it did in its best times. Although rom-coms are on the decline, there is still hope for more great movies in the future.
In the end, the rom-com genre saw a great amount of success during the 1990’s. In exploring why these movies stood out, it seems to be a good script, good acting, the absence of forced tropes. In weeding through some flops, the decades following the 90’s also brought a number of prominent rom-coms. These good natured-films still hold their place in cinematic history.
by Chloe Lusvardi
Published on February 24 2024
Oshkosh West Index Volume 121 Issue V