Ahh, Valentine’s Day. Whether you’re mad in love or as single as a pringle, a hopeless romantic or (like me) simply hopeless, there’s one thing that everyone can agree on: ‘tis the season of the rom-com.
Perhaps the rom-com never really falls out of season. After all, it’s my annual tradition to re-watch Love Actually at least once every Christmas. But the genre has particular magic on the 14th of February. After a long day of bonding with loved ones (or signing up to various blind dates), sometimes all you want to do is curl up in bed with a hot drink and a cozy film. And what better kind of film than one that ends with a feel-good, “And They All Lived Happily Ever After”?
I have a soft spot for a good rom-com. I find myself routinely re-watching Kat Stratford read her iconic poem to Patrick Verona (Ten Things I Hate About You), and I’ve seen Harry meet Sally more times than I’d perhaps like to admit. But I’ve always felt a bit of a stigma around liking this particular flavour of film. As an English student, I should surely be consuming more refined, high-brow media – something no less than Citizen Kane, instead of the formulaic, boy-meets-girl drivel. Because, let’s be honest, “formulaic” is exactly what this genre is. It thrives on age-old tropes: enemies-to-lovers (Dirty Dancing, The Proposal), friends-to-lovers (When Harry Met Sally), occasionally even sex dolls-to-lovers (Lars and the Real Girl).
With these tropes, the rom-com often risks building unrealistic expectations about romance. The perfect meet-cute is a once-in-a-blue-moon phenomenon. My frequent visits to coffee shops and bookstores have led me closer to overdraft than to finding “the one.” People don’t just “montage” into a relationship either, at least not in the real world. And that’s not to mention that the idea of kissing under heavy rain is probably a lot more appealing in theory than in practice…
But, for all its cliché, my soft spot for the rom-com persists – as I’m sure it does for many. Rom-coms are charming precisely because of their tropiness. We know we can’t ever be a Noah or an Allie, but we certainly wish we were, and find comfort in imagining ourselves as them. Rom-coms provide 90 minutes-worth of escapism: for a small window of time, we allow the world of romance and glamour to sweep us away from our day-to-day lives. They are the film equivalent of comfort food – nice to have once in a while, healthier in doses rather than in large amounts, and particularly bingable after a break-up.
And, like comfort food, they are the quintessential “guilty pleasure”: those things that others love to hate, and we hate to love. Everyone has them, from the chav who’s a bit of a Star Wars-head to the rugby lad who shamelessly enjoys the Twilight franchise (you know who you are). To have a guilty pleasure is to enjoy something while fully acknowledging its flaws. And while the rom-com is by no means some perfect genre of entertainment, we keep returning to it, time and time again. We love it, warts and all.
La La Land is the guiltiest of my guilty pleasures. I often use it as my answer to that classic ice-breaker, “what’s your favourite movie?” Response has been mixed: some are a little incredulous, some find it pathetic, but some admit that the film holds a special place in their hearts too.
If I were to use one word to describe Damien Chazelle’s 2016 rom-com, it would be “dreamy.” In fact, a pair of dreamers lie at the very heart of the film: the aspiring jazz musician Seb (Ryan Gosling) and the wannabe actress Mia (Emma Stone). While they struggle in their respective industries, Seb and Mia eventually find their way to one another, and a magical romance ensues. The first date says it all. Their night at the planetarium is otherworldly. It’s a completely silent sequence – but then Seb and Mia don’t need words to convey their love for one another. Through their movements, rich imagery, and Justin Hurwitz’s stunning soundtrack, we share in the emotions of this scene. As the lovers imagine waltzing through the cosmos, you get swept up in their fantasy. You wish you were there and you wish you were them.
But La La Land ends up as something like an anti-rom-com. After all, the film famously concludes with the boy not getting the girl. Five years later, Seb and Mia have gone their separate ways to pursue their careers – yet they re-unite, by complete chance, at a jazz bar. This is a kind of reversal of the classic rom-com meet-cute – and what follows is a subversion of the genre’s typical “getting-to-know-you” montage, as the couple dream about what could have been between the two of them. Hurwitz’s music is at full force, as the sequence moves through powerful renditions of all the songs that we’ve heard so far in the movie. Like in the planetarium scene, it’s impossible not to be taken by the couple’s fantasy, as they imagine how different their lives might have been. It’s ultimately a bitter-sweet ending, as La La Land concludes with a strong feeling of “if only, if only” – a sentiment that will be familiar to the dreamers out there.
But it’s that nostalgic ending note which makes La La Land my guilty pleasure all the same. By the time La La Land finishes, you end up feeling like one of the “fools who dream” yourself. You leave a film like this feeling really vulnerable, having shared in the hopes and dreams of its main characters. Even though it’s by no means a conventional rom-com, this movie reminds me why I still love the genre so much. The real world can be harsh and unforgiving, with things not always turning out the way they could have. But that’s why we need dreams, fantasy, escapism. We need a world into which we can retreat, as and when necessary. Therein lies the true value of a good rom-com.