“Sometimes the genres that have been forgotten are the ones that the public craves the most.” Those words are from Glen Powell, star of Anyone but you, whose box office results prove that the actor is right. In just two weeks, it raised almost one and a half million euros in our country. The genre Powell refers to is none other than the romantic comedy, which in turbulent times works as an escapist injection capable of paralyzing, with love and laughter, the world for an hour and a half. The new wave of romantic comedies began in 2017 with The great disease of love that achieved two milestones in the universe of romcoms, with permission from The good side of things, whose formula had many fewer clichés than its genre companions: being liked by critics and being nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Seven years later, Michael Showalter has released The idea of you, where Anne Hathaway plays a 40-year-old divorced woman who falls in love with a 25-year-old pop icon, played by Nicholas Galitzine. The film, like so many others, has been released in streamingsomething that Will Gluck, director of Anyone but you He believes that he never plays in favor of the genre. “Although the release on these platforms does not reduce the quality of the feature films, the problem is that at home, we don’t laugh. We don’t laugh when we’re watching something on the phone or when we’re watching something on the computer, while we’re also doing other things,” he explains to The Hollywood Reporter. The film, in which Glen Powell stars alongside Sydney Sweeney, has grossed $150 million. Its budget did not exceed 25 million euros, further proof that romantic comedies are not only liked by the public, but above all, by the industry’s pockets. “Everything that made a romantic comedy seem unattractive to a traditional Hollywood studio now makes it more attractive to platforms like Netflix. You can attract the stars, but they do it with a relatively small budget, with fewer locations, locations and with a shorter shooting time,” Scott Meslow, author of From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy, where it celebrates romantic comedies and their role in culture. ”The crisis of the romantic comedy never had to do with the genre itself, but with the rise of platforms and the general decline in theater attendance. The virtual disappearance of medium-budget films has led the genre to swell the catalogs of Netflix and others. And the box office success of Anyone but you, which is sold as a revival of the rom-com, ends up having a lot to do with the role of TikTok. I think that the always clever studio executives are going to hurry to adapt to the new times,” says Àlex Montoya, film journalist.
An escapism that takes the pulse of new needs
What is undeniable is that these films function as a kind of film lexatin in turbulent times like the ones we are dealing with. “They offer certainties and escape routes, postcards of better worlds and almost perfect relationships. Sometimes what we want when we get home is a little evasion, not questioning. If one looks back in the history of cinema, in the great moments of war conflicts is when romantic comedies have been one of the hegemonic genres,” explains Jaume Ripoll, editorial director of Filmin.
The return of canonical heterosexual romanticism in times of uncertainty does not, however, leave aside diversity. According to Dani de la Orden, whose career is led by romantic comedies and who releases on June 28 House in flames Diversity is no longer the result of an imposed effort, but something completely natural. “Before, romantic comedies had been written by men who created a product designed for women, but today, there are romantic comedies written with a counterpoint to those of yesteryear, in which the woman was the object of desire and an element of conquest. While they messed up, they, always perfect, had the mission of remedying her mistakes. In the wake of Fleabag, Fiction finally reflects that women also make mistakes and can be bad and selfish, as we all are at some point, especially in relationships,” she points out.
Fans of traditional romantic comedy should not be alarmed, because romantic love continues to be key in most of the new titles. “The film industry, like almost all of them, is essentially conservative, and paradigm changes are always very slow. And exactly the same thing happens with the portrayal of diversity: if those who finance the films are heterosexual, white and rich men, they will hardly want gay or non-Caucasian protagonists,” explains Montoya. He clarifies that today, we will hardly find the romanticization of toxic behaviors that we can see in classics like High Fidelity, love actually either While you were Sleeping. “In terms of diversity, successes such as Crazy rich Asians either Love, Simon They tell us that the industry is evolving, but always much more slowly than a society that would not be exactly fast when it comes to transforming its outlook,” he clarifies.
Since May 9, The bride’s motherstarring Brooke Shields and Miranda Cosgrove, is now available in the Netflix catalog, which also has the film that marked the return to cinema of Lindsay Lohan, who stars an irish wish a true viewing success. After the furor of the romantic comedy that makes the age difference the epicenter of the plot, as The idea of youNicole Kidman and Zac Efron repeat formula in A family affairwhich arrives on the streaming platform on June 28.
The age difference of the protagonists also works to attract both new and older generations, going one step beyond trip to paradise the most successful romantic film of 2022, which reunited Julia Roberts and George Clooney and was described not only as “a triumph of the romantic comedies of yesteryear, but as a film aimed at an older audience.” But where are the LGTBIQA+ stories? After the success of Red, white and blue blood, with Nicholas Galitzine and Taylor Zakhar Perez, Amazon MGM Studios is already developing the long-awaited sequel. “In the end, romantic love is romantic love, right? I think we all end up falling into the same thing and perpetuate the idealization of romantic love for life. I do it myself in my books, although I also try to go a little further. Because in the end, I think that the message we must give, and even more so in a group like the LGTBIQA+, is that self-love has to take precedence. Because if you want to be someone for others, you first have to be someone for yourself,” says Juan Arcones, an expert in the literary genre. boyslovewhich focuses on a homosexual relationship between two male protagonists and has just been published A summer king’.
The need? of rereading and the future of the happy ending
Finally, what about happy endings, a classic in most romantic comedies? “The new way of understanding love perhaps does not seek the happy ending so forcefully. When I tried to make an ending that wasn’t so sweet, some viewers got angry. Also, who said ending a movie with a happy ending is wrong? I also believe that romantic love is parents, but that’s why we watch movies, right? To see things that are parents! Isn’t that the worst of Friends precisely the ending, which is too real? It even seems daring to me now that the film ends well. If you manage to make a film today that has a happy ending and that people like, it seems even braver to me,” says Dani de la Orden.
Precisely Friends It is a good example of how complicated it is for certain gems from the past, such as so many romantic comedies, to age well, since romantic comedies are a clear reflection of the gender norms of the moment, with the passage of time they become outdated. However, many people enjoy the genre knowing its narrative structure perfectly and without trying to find valuable messages in the plot. “Rereadings are essential, in romantic comedy and in any other genre, and it is essential that we recognize toxic behaviors, but when those same films are already part of the emotional memory, we tend to forgive those peccadilloes,” says Àlex Montoya in conclusion.
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