Romantic Comedies we like

[wimbo77]

The Holiday (2006)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holiday

The Holiday is a 2006 American romantic comedy film written, produced and directed by Nancy Meyers. Co-produced by Bruce A. Block, it was filmed in both California and England, and stars Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as Amanda and Iris, two lovelorn women from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, who temporarily exchange homes to escape heartbreak during the holiday season.

[Nobody1]

Shall we dansu? (Japan, 1996)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117615/


There was a remake with Richard Gere in 2004. Unfortunately, the subtle social criticism from which the Japanese original drew its believable wealth of romantic, sentimental, and sometimes excruciatingly funny situations, were completely lost. Both cultures are simply too different to transport the subject matter of the original in a credible way.

[Nobody1]

Only Yesterday (Japan, 1991)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102587/


Another narrative masterpiece by Isao Takahata. Not exactely a straightforward romantic comedy, but something similar.

[wimbo77]

Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany's_(film)

[Sir Honkers]

Enough Said with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini. Everything about it is pitch perfect.

[scoundrel]

Another Hallmark romcom but, not for the first time now, I have been surprised to encounter a film which is not merely done by the numbers but which is inventive and clever and well worth watching, even if it uses the exact self-same incidental theme music that all the other Hallmark rom-coms seem to use. The thing with these movies is that there is a standard destination but the scriptwriter has freedom to invent the route. This writer, someone called Kathy Kloves, used her freedom within the formula very well and came up with a strong human story with a lot of heart. The actors are all sound and the heroine is played by the rather delectable Amy Smart, who delivered a very engaging and charming screen performance and really carried this film.

The action begins on a commuter train. Jobbing journalist Mary Landers (Amy Smart) is going home after a rather disappointing day in which she has been assigned by her editor to write a Valentines Day feature article about the meaning of love and, ironically, dumped by her fiance of five years on the evening when she thought and hoped he would propose to her. He thinks they are in a rut and that she has become boring and has made him into a boring person too.

Mary: But...we live in the same building Carl. Don't you think it would be awkward if we broke up?
Carl: You're right. That's why I think you should move.

She is looking great because she took pains to look her best, thinking tonight was the night. But she isn't feeling great. But when a handsome man sitting a few seats away catches her eye and openly admires her without being creepy about it, she cheers up a bit. They do not speak, but his cellphone (its America) falls out of his pocket and she notices too late to catch him as he leaves the train. [Did it just "fall" or is this the 21st Century version of the lady dropping her handkerchief?] Any love at first glance is bound to be based on physical desire. In the words of Taylor Swift:

You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye
And I got that red lip classic thing that you like
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
'Cause we never go out of style
We never go out of style

You got that long hair, slicked back, white t-shirt
And I got that good girl thing in a tight little skirt
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
'Cause we never go out of style
We never go out of style

.

Mary has a gay male flatmate who adeptly defeats the security code so that Mary can access the call register and pass the message to the owner that she has his phone and wants to return it. But curiosity gets the better of her when she finds he has a huge album of really interesting location photos on the phone; it turns out that he is a top end photo journalist / artist called James Fielding. He certainly isn't boring. Already rather desperate at the prospect of writing a story about the meaning of love, Mary is also fascinated by the photographs. She decides that she wants to know a lot more about this man and asks for his permission to write a feature article about his life and career and to interview some of his contacts on the phone.

Why would he agree? Mary is surprised and delighted when he does agree; but, silly girl, she does not quite appreciate that if she is sufficiently interested in him to want to write about him, the fact that he is willing to give permission might mean that she is interesting to him. They have never even spoken, only seen one another on a train and exchanged text messages. So what could possibly be interesting about her to him? Any man in the world can answer that one; she looks exactly like Amy Smart. She is blond, slim but with very nice curves exactly where a woman should curve; she has that ingenuous fresh-faced prettiness which is rather classy and yet sexy as hell; she has terrific legs and she is looking awfully tidy, having dressed for a big evening that didn't work out. Frankly, he covets her and if she writes his story she will need to finish by meeting him; he is guaranteed a date and a chance to fly the male flag and see where his luck will go. Plus she will write his story and he will get to read it. James is a bit of a thrill seeker and this is a different sort of adventure.

Unadventurous Amy finds that she has embarked on a thrilling and very unusual journey. She learns to dance the tango. She meets a female friend of James who runs a charity for homeless dogs and finds herself won over into adopting a dog. She does her first parachute jump and finds it terrifying and yet intensely enjoyable; there is definitely a bit of a sexual metaphor there. She also meets an array of James' friends and they are a collective fan club testimonial. As well as being an adventurer, James is gifted in friendship; his gift stems from generosity of spirit and genuine engagement with other people. He is a rather good egg who has helped several people with problems in their personal lives.

Touchingly, his own life has been blighted immeasurably more than once. First he lost his mother in an accident on the day he made his first Valentines Day card. Then when he thought his life was finally working out, the great love of his life suffered a near-fatal head injury and achieved a full physical recovery, but suffered total memory loss. Carrie no longer even knows him and has fallen head over heels for her physical therapist, handsome nurse Matthew Maguire, who of course has taught her to walk again and has given her back her chance to go on living. James has seemed to cope with this unusual and extremely bitter bereavement with dignity and to have let go; but his career of photo journalism, running with bulls, swimming with sharks and posing next to lions has started from this point. One doesn't need to do a degree in psychology to guess the connection. Denial; escape, call it what you will. But this seemingly very strong person is living silently with terrible pain which only a woman's love will ever heal.

It is a really serious clue when James's latest photo collection arrives and is exhibited. It includes a picture of a heart in a tree, called "Hopeful" and, to Mary's delighted astonishment, a B/W picture of a girl sat in a train looking pensive and rather classically beautiful, called "Girl in Red Shoes"; only the shoes have colour. It is Mary of course, just before she noticed he was catching her eye, and looking exactly like Amy Smart. He saw her first and, oh yes, he liked. This is a rather unusual way to say the usual thing, but she is getting it now; this man, who she both desires and warmly admires for his humanity, covets her and doesn't want to fail to get her attention merely by not trying. If she isn't interested he will move on, but he won't have to wonder whether he missed an opportunity. But what Mary also knows is that other women have noticed him and he did not pursue other opportunities; he was not over his broken heart, and now he clearly feels ready to reach out to a woman again. It's time. Mary has a big open goal here. It is now time for her to be adventurous and seize the moment.

This film is, as romcoms are, the story of a courtship. But it is a very unusual courtship, in which the male player is absent for 95% of the movie and invites the female player into his life by proxy. But by so doing he has joined her life and influenced it a lot, making her explore new things and experiment with new aspects of her own personality. There are a lot of the sentimental cliches you can expect in romcoms in general and Hallmark romcoms especially, but the film is rather deeper than you would think and sometimes much darker and more emotionally honest. Plus it has Amy Smart in it and she is seriously good looking in that All-American way I have always appreciated. Incidentally, she is a real actress, not merely eye-candy. This is a genuinely good film, in spite of the frequent cloying schmaltzy moments which interfere with the edginess just when that is really working well. It does conventional things in an inventive and unconventional way and I was entertained.

[Keeper Nilbog]

Not a great fan of RomCom, but 2 I do like are;-

The Wedding Singer (Billy Idol Cameo, who could ask for more)

10 Things I Hate about You (don't know why, but I do)

[Sir Honkers]

Gregory's Girl directed by Bill Forsyth. Great coming of age romcom.

[scoundrel]

27 Dresses is a very enjoyable and well constructed entertainment made very exactly to the standard romcom formula. As well as watching it for the first time tonight I have sampled the available online reviews and I am a little intrigued by how much flack the film gets - but I'm sure that all parties involved in this production are crying all the way to the bank.

A brief summary of why I think this film is successful as a romantic comedy -

• Katherine Heigl is superb in this film. Her creation of the heroine, Jane Nichols is really well realised, even down to the crucial plot point that someone as beautiful as Katherine Heigl is being consistently outshone and upstaged by her younger sister, Tess; also extremely well portrayed by the glorious blond actress Malin Akerman. Jane is always the bridesmaid, never the bride - the 27 dresses are her bridesmaid outfits she has never thrown away.
• James Marsden does a fine job as Jane's bete noir, feature writer Kevin Doyle. Of course the film is conforming with railway timetable precision to the cliche of the true love relationship originating in deeply felt antagonism, but it's only a cliche because it often works quite well. Kevin is a cynical and extremely observant clever clogs and it is quite reasonable that Jane detests him; but gradually she warms to him because in spite of her open hostility he shows kindness and understanding at various times when she is vulnerable and even deserves a cheap shot from him, which he never delivers even though he would only be returning fire.

The plot consists of a thwarted love triangle, in which Jane loves her handsome and achieving boss from afar, only to watch with secret mortification as her glorious and much more overtly attractive and flirtatious younger sister sweeps him off his feet. It is even harder to bear because Tess pretends to be the sort of person George would admire - socially aware, animal loving (Tess can't even remember the name of their childhood pet dog correctly and has to be bailed out by the far too enabling and obliging Jane), vegetarian, intellectual. Meanwhile, Jane is sublimely unreceptive to the fact that a handsome young chap most definitely covets her and is flying the male flag so clearly that only an idiot would be unaware of it. Jane is that idiot; not even smart enough to recompute when she sends Kevin packing from a chance encounter at a nightclub where she is determined to be unhappy, and one of her female friends watches Kevin leave and comments pointedly that she would like one of those.

James is a feature writer and is also a fool to himself. Cynicism is very much his watchword, especially after being the victim of someone else's "The Graduate" happy ending, left standing at the altar. He really doesn't believe in love or married bliss and makes his living writing wedding announcements and feature articles on happy weddings, tying with forked keyboard. So when he discovers Jane's particular quirk, the saving of the 27 dresses in her closet, he wins her confidence only to betray it. He was indulging his own unhealed wound at Jane's expense, making her seem foolish and laughable when she doesn't deserve it, even though a lot of what he notes is only too true.

Kevin Doyle had a wrong idea of Jane, thinking she is a shallow creature, and after drafting the article he starts to rework it because he starts to know her better and starts to realise she is a lot more sensitive, kind hearted and plain interesting than he initially thought she was. But the article is still far from what he now wants to be or to say and his lady editor doesn't care that he is deeply smitten with the lady in the article - she liked the hatchet job version and publishes it after promising she wouldn't. It couldn't be more inopportune, in that Kevin has only just made extremely crucial ground, correctly divining that Jane is in love with the groom and even succeeding in seducing her, because he wants her body but also wants her, and because nothing could do her more good than to let go of the man she can never have and reach out to a man who is very keen to try to be her real someone. Kevin had help from his selfish and ruthless editor, but deserves most of the credit for shooting a tunnel sized hole in his own foot.

How to come back from that?

Start by being the only one who both understands and approves when Jane finally rebels from being too nice for too long and deliberately spoils Tess's romance with boss George by outing Tess's charade of being green and eco-friendly, deep thinking, vegetarian etc.etc. It was cruel even though deserved and even though done in a really creative and clever way. But Kevin knows Jane is caught in a trap of being constantly obliging, helpful and kind and is openly delighted for her that she is finally rebelling. But he doesn't delude himself that he can expect forgiveness merely for supporting her over this explosive incident - he came to say goodbye, not wanting to say goodbye, but because he has too much dignity to beg for forgiveness when he has absolutely no defence to plead.

In what is a very nicely acted scene, she reconciles with Tess. Although Tess is right to feel humiliated and betrayed, Jane is right to feel that Tess was stealing from her in a really complex way, almost pretending to be Jane in order to woo George. However, when Tess admits to feeling inferior and lesser than Jane and wanting to be like Jane, Jane is utterly shocked, dumfounded and disarmed, because she has always been deeply envious of Tess, the blond cheerleader, prom queen and popular one.

But...why would you want to be me...when you're you?

It is only now starting to dawn on Jane that she herself is anyone special, anyone a sister such as Tess could look up to, let alone envy.

Having forgiven and been forgiven by her sister, Jane starts to realise she needs to mend another fence. Although she was entitled to feel betrayed by Kevin's feature article, especially because he has given her her 15 minutes of fame in a way she really really didn't want; it turns out to be much less mortifying than she thought. He did re-write it enough to make her much more sympathetic and likable than when he first wrote it and she is rather surprised that not only do complete strangers recognise her and know about the dresses story, they find it heartwarming as well as funny and they admire her for being such a good friend to 27 brides. Kevin did let her down, but was not mean to her in the story as she initially thought. She doesn't need to be told that he loves her and he is sorry, and as it turns out that the story is making her popular, it's a little bit easier to dial down on the anger.

In fact, Jane is waking up and smelling the coffee and Kevin has been instrumental in making this happen. She quits her job because loving George from afar is a hiding to nothing and she finally realises she owes more to herself than this - one of the points Kevin has been trying to make her see. She reconciles with her sister. She finds peace with the fact that her 27 dresses are now in the public domain, mainly because she didn't expect people would be nice about it. But most of all she realises that she no longer loves George anyway, she's over that, but she is very very far from being over Kevin. And why does she have to be over Kevin anyway, when she knows that all she has to do is to forgive him and he will never fail her again?

But, which is only justice, as she sent him away, she has to be brave and openly ask him to return. That's an enjoyable scene too, in which Jane has to take on what is usually the male role and declare herself to him. Given how their romance has ebbed and flowed and mostly she has been the ebb and he has been the flow, he deserves this from her and she knows it.

I liked the ending too, in which Jane finally has the wedding she had lost hope of enjoying and it is everything she dreamed of and more. But what I liked best was that boss George turned up, ostensibly to give his blessing to his ex-employee, but really to check out the ground with his ex-fiance Tess and potentially start again. George has got over his hurt feelings and started to see the other side of the coin. He is at least ten years older than Tess, still a good looking chap but no teenager. Tess is one hell of a looker, and does have a personality and a brain, even if she is not a Mensa candidate or a saintly social justice warrior. Most of all, Tess really did adore him and he is starting to wake up to how precious that was.

Tess is Jane's maid of honour and when she realises that George has invited himself, she faces the mortifying reunion with dignity and courage, meeting and greeting him as is her duty, introducing herself exactly as if it is their first meeting and giving a brief, truthful and honest account of her present life and circumstances, prompting him to do the same and to ask very courteously if she will have a drink with him after the ceremony. Where it will go from there is anyone's guess, but it is clear that George is there because he knows Tess is going to be there, and is hoping to take it somewhere. It completes the film's underlying theme of forgiveness and redemption, and I liked that.

Good film IMHO. Critics who thought otherwise don't blow me out of my socks.