Romantic comedy

Romantic comedy films are movies with light-hearted, humorous dramatic stories centered around romantic ideals such as a "true love" able to surmount most obstacles or the "perfect couple." Romantic comedy films are a sub-genre of comedy films as well as of romance films. Because of their proven appeal to women, movies of that type are generally regarded as being "chick flicks".

The basic plot of a romantic comedy is that two people, usually a man and a woman, meet and then part ways due to an argument or other contrived obstacles. Initially, these two people do not become romantically involved, because they believe that they do not like each other, because one of them already has a partner, or social pressures. However, the screenwriters leave obvious clues that suggest that the characters are in fact attracted to each other, or that they would be a good love match.

While the two people are separated, one or both individuals then realize that they are "perfect" for each other, or that they are in love with the other person. Then, after one of the two makes some spectacular effort to find the other person and declare their love, (this is sometimes called the grand gesture), or due to an astonishing coincidental encounter, the two meet again. Then, perhaps with some comic friction or awkwardness, they declare their love for each other and the film ends happily.

There are many variations on this basic plotline. Sometimes, instead of the two lead characters ending up in each other's arms, another love match will be made between one of the principal characters and a secondary character (e.g., My Best Friend's Wedding). Alternatively, the film may be a rumination on the impossibility of love, as in Woody Allen's film Annie Hall. The basic format of a romantic comedy film can be found in much earlier sources, such as Shakespeare plays like Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Devices

• Meet cute
• Grand gesture
• Romantic dénouement
• Sexual tension
• Mistaken identity
• Romp

History

Comedies since ancient Greece have often incorporated sexual or social elements. It was not until the creation of romantic love in the western European medieval period, though, that "romance" came to refer to "romantic love" situations, rather than long Roman novels. The creation of huge economic social strata in the Gilded Age, combined with the heightened awareness of sex after the Victorian Age and the celebration of Freud's (wrong) theories, and the birth of the film industry in the early twentieth century, gave birth to the screwball comedy. As class consciousness declined and World War II unified various social orders against the Hun, the savage screwball comedies of the twenties and thirties, proceeding through Hudson-Day-style comedies, gave way to more innocuous comedies.

The French film industry went in a completely different direction, with less inhibitions about sex and without the roots of screwball comedy, creating sex comedies.

Examples

Examples of romantic comedy films include:

Screwball comedy period

• It Happened One Night
• Bringing Up Baby
• My Man Godfrey

Transitional period

• Singin' in the Rain,
• Pillow Talk
• Lover Come Back
• For Keeps?

Modern romantic comedies

• Pretty Woman
• Sleepless in Seattle
• Never Been Kissed
• Notting Hill
• Serendipity
• The Wedding Planner
• The Holiday
• Kate & Leopold
• Something's Gotta Give
• Music and Lyrics
• My Sassy Girl
• The Sweetest Thing
• Love, Actually
• Monster-in-Law

External links

• Romantic Comedy Movies - Top 290 (1978-present) by Box Office Mojo