KT Op-Ed: The Death of the Rom-Com
Does Deadpool vs Wolverine live up to the hype
On the death of the rom-com
Words by Bella Suckling
On a recent long-haul flight, I rewatched an old favourite – Sydney Pollack’s The Way We Were, made in 1973. Crazy curly-haired Communist Katie Morosky (played by Barbra Streisand) meets WASPy golden boy Hubble Gardiner and the two go back and forth for a decade. Bloated, strangely plotted and melodramatic as it is, The Way We Were remains a romantic classic, saved by the chemistry and charisma of its two leads. With four hours left of the flight and the desire to find a film that evoked an approximate feeling, I searched for one to pass the time. I landed on the 2023 Sydney Sweeney produced rom-com Anyone But You. It wasn’t great. As the final credits rolled, I thought of the romantic comedies I grew up on – Bringing Up Baby, the novels of Jane Austen, When Harry Met Sally, Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. It seemed, at that moment, somehow unlikely the same kind of work –– with stakes, with feeling –– could be written and produced now. I thought: is the romantic comedy a historical artefact?
There are some who I’m sure are glad to hear the death knell of the romantic comedy. The genre has more than a few critics. Rom-com is, in many ways, a commercial term rather than a real genre. It is also manipulative and formulaic, coercing its audience at every turn. Historically, in Western popular culture, the genre is also largely heterosexual and largely white. For many, romantic-comedies are buoyed by a mythology of heterosexuality that they find to be false –– that romantic love is a crux against all sins, that those who have hurt us will return and repent, that love will save us. I’ve had girlfriends complain of feeling misled or even duped by the romantic comedies they watched as teenagers, as if they centre the female gaze to the point of being female fantasy – a fantasy that shields them from the sometimes disheartening experience of dating.
To (somewhat crudely) simplify the history of the genre, let’s say the romantic comedy begins with Shakespeare’s comedies –– Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew; it expands and solidifies with Jane Austen’s novels. On film, it shines in the 1930s and 40s with Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story and His Girl Friday (among many others), revives itself in the 1980s and 90s with Nora Ephron and returns again in the early 2000s with the work of Richard Curtis and Nancy Meyers. Good romantic comedies build affection and tension between their leads and release that tension at the perfect moment to allow for catharsis. But they are also often social critiques. The stakes of these narratives are animated by the social and political realities they emerge from. It is the stakes that contextualises and deepens the love at the centre of these stories.
In Pride and Prejudice, when Elizabeth Bennett rejects Mr Darcy’s first proposal, she turns down a level of wealth that would transform her life and the life of her family because she does not (yet) love him. This is a principled move, made significant by Elizabeth’s economic precarity, which is directly related to her gender and marital status. When she finally does marry Darcy, it’s because she has fallen in love with him. Romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally and even Bridget Jones’ Diary often centre female heroines who, although upbeat and funny, are humiliated and jaded by their romantic pasts. These heroines of the late 20th and early 21st century are older and they fear being alone – the stakes of their love stories are rooted in their vulnerability and in the possible return, sappy as it sounds, of their belief in love.
Worth noting is that romance, as a genre, remains as popular as ever. Romance books, propelled and popularised by TikTok, dominate the bestseller list. The demand for romance in commercial television and film is strong. But what distinguishes the romantic comedy from romance is…comedy. Romantic comedies suspend our disbelief through humour. And this levity rarely comes from slapstick or physical comedy, it is grounded in dialogue.
In Our True Entertainment Was Arguing — the final essay in her recent, excellent collection All Things Are Too Small — Becca Rothfeld centres the idea of equality in love. With reference to His Girl Friday and Pride and Prejudice (both of which I would class as romantic comedies), she draws connections between repartee and romance. She returns to Nietzsche’s maxim that ‘marriage is a long conversation.’ ‘How long is the conversation of love?’ she asks, ‘nothing less than everlasting can be enough.’ The romantic comedy heightens and formalises this idea. Dialogue and wit are the engine that moves not only the plot but the soul of a romantic comedy. To quote Rothfeld again, ‘sometimes love’s discussions are exchanges of expressions of affection, or bouts of repartee so piquant that their patter is elevated into verbal art.’
If marriage is a long conversation, then Anyone but You is a bad one. Based loosely on Much Ado About Nothing, the film follows Bea and Ben – a law student and finance bro. Bea and Ben have a great first date which turns sour after a (frankly unconvincing) miscommunication. Some time later, they reunite at a destination wedding where they indulge in exaggerated contempt for one another but pretend to be dating to placate the frustrated wedding party. The film takes place in an uncanny reality that we are told is Sydney, Australia –– a relic of Covid-era production that pushed for American films to be made in Australia. It looks and feels like an insurance advertisement.
Where the female heroines of the romantic comedies of the 1940s were unconventional and charming (or as Broey Deschanel put it in her essay on the form… ‘quirked up’), the romantic leads of Anyone but You – played by Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney – are flat and bland. Where the film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing was erotic and taut with genuine romantic suspense, Anyone but You feels devoid of any real desire, at once oversexed and lacking any sexuality at all. In a scene where the two romantic leads grope each other for laughs, we learn that, in the world of this film, sex is very funny, very available and very boring –– a bold approach for a genre dependent on sexual tension. Where in Bringing Up Baby, wit is central –– one and the same with romantic tension –– the dialogue in Anyone but You tries for playful and lands on plodding (‘I’m all good on creatine and small dick insecurity”). It is a film without risk, without eroticism and without stakes. As Broey Deschanel notes in her essay, Anyone but You ‘ends up feeling like Chad and Stacey from high-school falling in love because they’re the hottest people in the room, rather than two people winning each other over with their charms.’
If we have questions about the state of love and romance in contemporary life, there are places we might go to find answers –– trad-wife influencer Instagram accounts, incel subreddits, undergraduate gender studies classes, Hinge dating profiles. None of these would likely paint a very hopeful picture. And if we looked to Anyone but You, we would depress ourselves very much. Love, in all its forms, remains worthy of defence. To find a romantic comedy that can offer us such a defence we might need to not only look more broadly but reimagine what the form means to us now.
WEEKLY FILM LISTINGS
25 July - 31 July
New Releases
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
Pat Boonnitipat, 2024
Screening at Cinema Nova and Chinatown Cinema
Tótem
Lila Avilés, 2024
Screening Daily at Nova
The Teacher Who Promised the Sea
Patricia Font, 2023
Screening Cinema Nova, Palace and Lido / Classics cinemas
Film Festivals:
Scandinavian Film Festival here
Melbourne Documentary Film Festival here
Films
S/He is Still Her/e: The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary
David Charles Rodrigues, 2024
Screening Sat 27 July, 7pm
Spotlight on K-Horror
Exhuma
Jang Jae-hyun, 2024
Screening Sat 27 July, 6:30pm
A Tale of Two Sisters
Kim Jee-woon, 2003
Screening Sunday 28 July
Matinees
The Lesson
Alice Troughton, 2023
Screening Fri - Sun
AFW presents… Space Cell!
Filmmakers Jangwook Lee and Yeongyoung Kim in-person!
7:30pm Tuesday 30 July @ The Brunswick Green
ASTOR CINEMA
Kinds of Kindness (35mm Presentation)
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024
Screening Sat and Sun
Persona
Ingmar Bergman, 1966
Screening Thursday 25 July
Leningrad Cowboys Go America
Aki Kaurismäki, 1989
Screening Friday 26 July
Beetlejuice
Tim Burton, 1988
Screening Friday 26 July
Cries & Whispers
Ingmar Bergman, 1972
Screening Sunday 28 July
Longlegs
Oz Perkins, 2024
Screening Thur, Sat and Sun
BBBC CINEMA (GALLERYGALLERY BRUNSWICK)
Closed for winter
No screening this week
CHINATOWN CINEMA
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
Pat Boonnitipat, 2024
Screening Daily
+
Wolverine and Deadpool
Inside out 2
CINÉ-CLUB (Carlton)
Closed for winter
Poison Ivy
Katt Shea, 1992
Screening Saturday 27 July
Totem
Lila Avilés, 2024
Screening Fri-Sun
Beat Street
Stan Lathan, 1984
Screening Daily
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, 2023
Screening Tue 23 July, 11:30am
To Live and Die in L.A.
William Friedkin, 1985
Screening Daily
Sunset Boulevard
Billy Wilder, 1950
Screening Thurs, Fri, Mon, Tues
The Road to Patagonia
Matty Hannon, 2024
Screening Thurs, Mon, Tues
The Convert
Lee Tamahori, 2024
Screening Daily
Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024
Screening Daily
Longlegs
Oz Perkins, 2024
Screening Daily
Divertimento
Maire-Castille Mention-Schaar, 2022
Screening Daily
Maxxxine
Ti West, 2024
Screening Daily
The Bikeriders
Jeff Nichols, 2024
Screening Daily
Sidonie in Japan
Élise Girard, 2023
Screening Daily - Exclusive to Nova
North by Northwest
Alfred Hitchcock, 1959
Screening Daily
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
Kevin Costner, 2024
Screening Fri and Mon
Sunflower
Gabriel Carrubba, 2023
Screening Daily
The Beast
Bertrand Bonello, 2023
Screening Daily
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
George Miller, 2024
Screening Daily
The Way, My Way
Bill Bennett, 2024
Screening Fri, Sat, Tues
Birdeater
Jim Weir, 2024
Screening Daily
Housekeeping for Beginners
Goran Stolevski, 2023
Screening daily
Monster
Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2023
Screening daily
Fremont
Babak Jalali, 2023
Screening Wed 24 July, 12:55pm
VVitch, The + Lighthouse, The
Robert Eggers, 2015 + 2019
Screening Tue 23 July, 7:00pm
The Taste of Things
Tran Anh Hung, 2023
Screening Daily
Challengers
Luca Guadagnino, 2024
Screening Daily
La Chimera
Alice Rohrwacher, 2023
Screening Daily
Fallen Leaves
Aki Kaurismäki, 2022
Screening Fri and Wed
Perfect Days
Wim Wenders, 2023
Screening Daily
DOGMILK DEGUSTATIONS: @ Miscellania
No screening week
No screening week
GAY24 (Bar Flippy’s)
No screening this week
HITLIST (9 Gertrude St, Fitzroy)
Shut for now
LIDO / CLASSIC / CAMEO
Events
Check sites for rep titles
General Release
Longlegs
Oz Perkins, 2024
Screening Daily
Birdeater
Jack Clark & Jim Weir, 2024
Screening Daily
Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024
Screening Daily
Maxxxine
Ti West, 2024
Screening Daily
The Bikeriders
Jeff Nichols, 2024
Screening Daily
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
Kevin Costner, 2024
Screening Daily
Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line
Paul Clarke, 2024
Screening Daily
Sunflower
Gabriel Carrubba, 2023
Screening Daily
Divertimento
Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, 2024
Screening Daily
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
George Miller, 2024
Screening Daily
Challengers
Luca Guadagnino, 2024
Screening Daily
The Convert
Lee Tamahori, 2024
Screening Daily
Late Night with the Devil
Cairnes Brothers’, 2023
Screening Daily
Sting
Kiah Roache-Turner, 2024
Screening Daily
OVA CLUB
No screening this week
THE MELBOURNE CINÉMATHÈQUE (ACMI)
L’Amour Fou
Jacques Rivette, 1969
Screening Wednesday 31 July, 6:30pm
TOP OF THE HEAP (Tramway Hotel)
No screening this week
Frozen
Adam Green, 2010
Screening Tuesday July 30
MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: SCREENING IDEAS
No screening this week
PALACE BALWYN / BRIGHTON / COMO / KINO / PENTRIDGE / MOONEE PONDS / WESTGARTH
Palace’s Saxo-Scandinavian Film Festival. More info here
General Release
The Bikeriders
Jeff Nichols, 2024
Screening Daily
Birdeater
Jim Weir, 2024
Screening Daily
Longlegs
Oz Perkins, 2024
Screening Daily
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
Kevin Costner, 2024
Screening Daily
Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line
Paul Clarke, 2024
Screening Daily
Sunflower
Gabriel Carrubba, 2023
Screening Daily
A Quiet Place: Day One
Michael Sarnoski, 2024
Screening Daily
The Convert
Lee Tamahori, 2024
Screening Daily
Radical
Christopher Zalla, 2023
Screening Thursday
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
George Miller, 2024
Screening Daily
A Great Friend
Eric Besnard, 2023
Screening Daily
The Way, My Way
Bill Bennett, 2024
Screening Daily
The Three Musketeers: D'artagnan
Martin Bourboulon, 2023
Screening Daily
The Taste of Things
Tran Anh Hung, 2023
Screening Daily
Challengers
Luca Guadagnino, 2024
Screening Daily
Read the piece
No listings this week / click link above to see what’s on (their site too hard to navigate)
Don’t Look Now
Nicholas Roeg, 1973
Screening Thurs 25th, 6:10pm and Mon 29, 6:10pm
Maxxxine
Ti West, 2024
Screening Thu, Sat, Sun
Hundreds of Beavers
Mike Cheslik, 2022
Screening Sat, Sun, Tue and Wed
Longlegs
Oz Perkins, 2024
Screening Sat, Sun and Wed
Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line
Paul Clarke, 2024
Screening Fri, Tue and Wed
Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024
Screening Wed
Luku Ngarra: The Law of the Land
Sinem Saban, 2022
Screening Sat and Wed
UNKNOWN PLEASURES @ Thornbury Picture House
No screening this week