The Plight of Modern Rom-Coms
As an appreciator of all kinds of films, I am not even remotely ashamed to admit that I love a good romantic comedy. I didn’t grow up watching many films of this genre (a decade ago, my taste started and ended with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), but over the past two years, I’ve taken it upon myself to get caught up on the classic beloved romcoms that everyone always references, from 27 Dresses to She’s All That to While You Were Sleeping. At the same time, I’ve been steadily watching more modern romcoms as they’ve come out. And something I, amongst many other people, have noticed is that these movies just don’t feel the same as they used to.
Two years ago when Top Gun: Maverick came out, people loudly proclaimed on Twitter and elsewhere that “movies were back.” Similar proclamations have been shouted in the past month following the success of Anyone But You — and while Glen Powell does star in both films, I believe there’s something else afoot (though I will be returning to the Glen Powell variable later). When we think of the beloved romcoms of decades past, we think of the way they made us feel: warm, silly, touched, etc. If we look at many more recent films individually, they more often than not make us feel the same way. The 90s and early 2000s might be regarded as the golden age of this genre, but that doesn’t mean films made in that time are immune from being, well, bad. The Wedding Planner is right there, and I have to say, it’s not great. If we judge the state of this genre on the whole by films individually, of course things seem dire. But there are still great modern romantic comedies, from Plus One to Rye Lane, and pointing to the poor quality or performance of single films as an indicator of the fall of the genre ignores a much larger and more concerning issue about the current state of the film industry.
Romantic comedies, currently, are severely devalued by the industry. The films that do get made by big studios (thinking of 2022’s Marry Me and Shotgun Wedding, amongst others) are convoluted and sloppy. They aren’t as funny as they’re trying to be and don’t have nearly as much heart as they should. Romcoms, in general, have always been written off as “chick flicks” in the kind of casually misogynistic way that many things that primarily have female audiences and fans do. So why, then, did a film like Anyone But You perform so well when it objectively suffers from similar issues? If you’re asking me, I think it’s star power.
When we think of movie stars, we think of people like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt — of people who’ve been in the industry for decades and made a household name for themselves (my way to test this is to ask my mother whether she knows a certain celebrity. Nicolas Cage yes, Ethan Hawke, no). But the (not-so-secret) secret of these movie stars is that they got their start doing the smaller indie films, the chick flicks, and the genre pieces. Cruise is the best example of this, ranging from The Outsiders to The Color of Money to Top Gun to Interview with the Vampire to Jerry Maguire, all in around fifteen years. By doing a wide range of films of different genres and budgets and for different audiences, Cruise ensured that he was known to the public and industry professionals alike. But in the 2010s, and with the rise of blockbusters like Transformers and the takeover of superhero films, it seems like there was a shift in mentality. The hard truth of films like those, though, is that you get actors like Chris Evans, who started on the traditional romcom-to-stardom path but ended up getting locked into the machine for over a decade only to emerge doing films like Ghosted. With the death of the traditional movie star has also come the death of the types of films that make movie stars. The romcoms and oddballs, the films that people love but aren’t necessarily going to make a billion dollars. As the film industry has shifted alarmingly into a profit-first scheme, with businessmen at the helm of studios with no regard for artistic creation, these smaller films fall through the cracks — or at least aren’t paid their due attention.
Anyone But You, then, is some kind of miracle. It’ll never be possible to discern exactly what made this film such a success, whether it be Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney’s relationship rumors or just the hilarious absurdity of the film itself. It’s also worth noting that the film is disarmingly sincere in its most cringe-inducing moments — a frankly welcomed departure from the too-common modern comedy which relies on a social culture polluted with irony. Regardless, to me, the film signified two things. First, that if things go right, Powell has it in him to be a star in the most traditional of senses, something I think the film industry could do with at the moment. Secondly, people are hungry for romcoms and if we all stop holding modern romantic comedies to the nostalgia-fueled standard of past films, maybe this genre can finally have a real resurgence. Anyone But You is no masterpiece, but it is entertaining, and if we’re being real, it's better than many romcoms from the 90s and 2000s. Not every film can be When Harry Met Sally or 10 Things I Hate About You. Some can be this, because for every Anyone But You, there is also Plus One and Rye Lane and Shithouse. As audience members, it’s hard to change the industry in any way but through our reactions, and as long as we keep watching and loving the genuine and heartfelt romantic comedies that come our way, there will be more like them that get made.