Rom-Coms for Valentine’s Day
IT’S VALENTINE’S DAY 💖and I completely forgot until every streaming service started forcing rom-coms into my recommendations. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good rom-coms out there, but there are also a lot of clichéd, overdone, or dodgy ones. The one that pisses me off the most right now is The Kissing Booth, as it pushes abusive relationships, sexist views, and as much as I would love to give a very long, boring and unreadable review of the film, I simply felt gross and uncomfortable watching it. I have no plans to experience that again. So here are some others you can read from indiewire, insider, and Mashable. Rom-coms have always been a pretty dicey area when it comes to women. Often rom-coms are portrayed to be the female fantasy, but most are still made by men. Personally, I would take Mad Max Fury Road and the new Harley Quinn movie over whatever profit grab airport scene is being pushed out.
BUT it is Valentine’s Day, and there are a lot of really amazing rom-coms out there. So here is a list of some of my favourites.
Warm Bodies
Alright. Romeo and Juliet… but with Zombies. 😍Yes, it is from that very long period of time where every possible situation was rewritten to add zombies, but this film is funny, heartwarming, and brilliantly written. Set after the zombie apocalypse has happened, humans have built their safe houses and continue to survive, fighting off the undead, who wander, lost, never moving far from where they woke up. But, of course, teenagers get bored, and if any humans need to leave, out the door they run.
On top of the romantic aspects of the film, it shows the yearning for emotion. When a zombie eats a person's brain, they experience the person's memories, their emotions. Having no memories of his own, R is drawn to this and falls in love with a girl who gets stuck, alone, in an airport inhabited by Zombies. The ultimate result is that people change people, help each other, cure each other. A message from every good teacher from Cory Matthews to Chidi Anagonye.
The film was based on the book with the same title, written by Isaac Marion.
I Hate Valentine’s Day
If you love Nia Vardalos and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, this is another one of her masterpieces. Genevieve (Nia Vardalos), a florist with a love of romance, has flawless a philosophy for her love life. 5 dates, 5 dates with a person before they both move on. Long enough to get to now a person and enjoy their company, not long enough to fall in and out of love. As the film progresses, she finds out that her philosophy isn’t born out of love but fear. Fear of being abandoned, heart-broken, vulnerable, all of it. She struggles to change her philosophy after realising her feelings for her latest relationship is worth more than 5 dates.
look at how pretty she is
There are a lot of good Netflix rom-coms coming out, ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, but this one is severely undervalued. A film focusing on the horrible year transitioning from high school to university. Applying to schools, studying, and for these two, debate club. A slow burn, enemies to lovers trope that doesn’t end with the girl giving up her life long goals to disappear with a mediocre guy with no long term prospects. No, both of these kids end up happy, successful, and are just enjoying being with people just as insane as each other.
look at these beautiful shots
Not only does the film brilliantly show their romance, but is breaks down some pretty key aspects of high school, directly addressing how the school system breaks kids down to make people into '“robots”, how classism seriously affects kids prospects in schooling and in their future, and how therapy is important in developing youth. The school counsellor plays a vital role in the story. The counsellor’s room is filled with candy, giving the motif for the rest of the film, and being the only friend to both of these kids, helping them realise how they’ve isolated themselves to achieve their nearly impossible goals.
“The world needs good men who know how to kiss. I’m dead serious. Are you writing this down?”
Four Weddings and a Funeral
The big break of Hugh Grant, and an absolute classic. The film focuses around the people who only see each other at weddings and funerals, ex girlfriends, family members, the partners of friends and family, all those awkward people you never actually spend anytime with.
"Although I owe whatever success I've had to Four Weddings and a Funeral” - Hugh Grant
At it’s heart it’s a very human story, Charles (Hugh Grant) is at a point in his life when everyone is getting married, while he has never succeeded in love. He’s remarkably average with his flatmate Fiona, and is always late. He falls in and out of love. One of the reasons I love the film is it doesn’t end like every other. The couple that have fought against fate and expectations, have learnt from their experiences and create their own lives, instead of living out a script.
Muriel’s Wedding
An Aussie classic. Muriel is a woman desperate to get married. She loves love and she wants a beautiful wedding with a beautiful dress. Struggling with her identity, her friends, her changing life. It’s such an original film I don’t know how to describe it without completely giving it away. It’s even been made into a musical for the stage. ✨✨
camillenstuff - redbubble
Muriel wants a life better than she has, she want money, and admiration, and everything that comes with it. She moves to the city, gets a room mate, a job, a boyfriend. Everything is on the right track. Through this we see her life fall apart, time and time again, often at the consequence of her own lies. >> Also there is a lot of gay subtext. I mean I’d rather real text, but I’ll take it, because this is the story between Muriel and Rhonda (I did say Aussie).
