Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema: The Rom-Com

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Synopsis

In this documentary exploring the romantic comedy genre from its early days in silent cinema through to modern reinventions, renowned film critic Mark Kermode uses clips from seminal titles to contextualise its construction. Divided into six sections, each exploring different aspects of the genre – The Meet-Cute; The Music…and Dance; Casting; The Obstacle; The Dark Rom-Com; Happily Ever After? – Kermode uses examples from throughout cinema history to introduce key concepts and demonstrate how these have evolved over time. Notable figures within the rom-com movement such as Nora Ephron and Richard Curtis are studied, as well as the influence of Bollywood, and character archetypes such as the ‘manic pixie dream girl’ and the ‘gay best friend’. In addition to highlighting influential films from the last century of movie-making, Kermode also looks at the actors who have come to define the genre, such as Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and many more.

Films featured within this documentary include:

City Lights (1931); Top Hat (1935); Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938); Bringing Up Baby (1938); The Lady Eve (1941); Splash (1984); When Harry Met Sally… (1989); Sleepless in Seattle (1993); Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); Notting Hill (1999); Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001); Love Actually (2003); The Holiday (2006); 500 Days of Summer (2009); La La Land (2016); The Big Sick (2017); The Shape of Water (2017); Love, Simon (2018).