romcom

Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney star in Sony's "Anyone But You."SonyReleased just before the crowded Christmas movie season, Sony's "Anyone But You" seemed destined to be anything but a box-office hit — especially after it tallied just $6 million in ticket sales during its opening weekend.However, the film's box-office success was as much of a slow burn as the romance between its main characters played by rising stars Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney.In the seven weeks since, the romantic comedy has tallied $170 million…

Ever since Netflix declared the return of the moribund studio romcom with its “Summer of Love” in 2018, the company has churned out a steady stream of formulaic – or, to quote the burn in many a review, “algorithmic” – at-home fare. The genre didn’t so much reboot as mutate for a new streaming home with a now distinctive style: baseline watchable, sheen-y, disposable. I’ve reviewed probably a dozen of them and can only recall a handful. The few that have stuck – To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Set It Up – have endured…

Taylor Swift, firmly in her WAG era, ended weeks of speculation over her Super Bowl attendance on Sunday night. She successfully managed to jet from a Tokyo arena show to Las Vegas to watch her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, play in the Super Bowl.In typical Swift style, the appearance was a tightly choreographed affair that reportedly involved two private jets (one on standby, just in case) to ensure that she arrived in Sin City in time. When Swift hit Allegiant Stadium, the entourage included…

Leading up to Valentine's Day 2024, the latest romantic comedy offering is Prime Video's Puppy Love – a sweet, albeit forgettable entry into the much-loved genre. Even if the cheesy, off-key title doesn't seem inviting enough, this is a tale of two socially-awkward individuals, who find each other because of their pets. He has OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), she has no inhibitions on privacy or space. What are the odds that they will share some time together and fall in love along the way? The trope has been played…

I’ll admit that my first thought upon seeing Upgraded, a new Amazon Prime romcom, was something close to excitement – finally, a leading role for Camila Mendes that’s not in high school. At 29, the Riverdale alum, so game for whatever batshit curveball that show threw her and so sharp in Netflix’s romp Do Revenge, is a veteran of commanding the screen as a bitchy, beautiful, secretly vulnerable teen queen. Upgraded, from actor turned director Carlson Young, offers Mendes the much-deserved chance to act her age – or, at…

Jennifer Garner once called making 2004's 13 Going On 30—which still totally holds up 20 years later, BTW—one of the "happiest" parts of her life. So, it's not a surprise that she would take time out of her busy schedule to support (and roast) one of her buddies from the beloved rom-com: Mark Ruffalo, who famously played her love interest in the sweet time-travel flick, as he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Garner and Ruffalo have had adorable mini-reunions over the years reminiscing about their time as…

The maxim “expect little, forgive much” is apparently how to approach marriage; it may be a little depressing in real life, but it’s not a bad rule for movie romcoms, a genre in which, for whatever reason, the bar is extraordinarily low. For every His Girl Friday or When Harry Met Sally or Four Weddings, there are thousands of direct-to-streaming timewasters; if the films’ frequent lesson is that you’ll have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince, it also applies to the films themselves.Happily, this will-they-won’t-they…

As buoyant and elegant as bubbles in a glass of champagne, Frank Capra’s sublime 1934 comedy, written by long-time collaborator Robert Riskin, survives triumphantly because of its wit, charm, romantic idealism and its shrewd sketch of married life.Clark Gable plays roguish newspaperman Peter Warne; he encounters Ellie Andrews, played by Claudette Colbert, on a night bus to New York. She’s a haughty, gamine socialite on the run from her domineering millionaire father and, recognising her from a press photo, Warne offers a…

Anyone But You review: Friends with Benefits director Will Gluck's new romantic comedy starts like a good ol' New York rom-com does: the two leads meeting in a cafe. However, here, their rendezvous is awkward. Bea (Sydney Sweeney) wants to go to the loo, but can't wait to stand in the long queue to buy something because “toilets are only for customers.” So Ben (Glen Powell) comes to her rescue, buying her a peppermint tea so she can rush to relieve herself. Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney in Anyone But You (Also…

Dan Levy, the son of Eugene and co-creator of TV comedy Schitt’s Creek, has made an agonisingly well-intentioned and indulgent feature debut with a bittersweet relationship dramedy for which he is writer, director, producer and star, set in and around various tasteful upmarket properties in London and Paris. The need for emotional honesty is a theme, and audiences are entitled to wonder if the role played by wealth in soothing broken hearts deserves to be discussed more openly here than it is.Levy plays Marc, an artist…