All language subtitles for S01E01 - The Rom-Com

This programme contains
some strong language

She's a girl dreaming of escape.

He's a boy too wild to be tamed.

They were horribly alone.

Until their worlds collided...

Oh! Shit. Bugger!

..and they fell in love.

Yes!

We've seen this all before.

But all around the world,
we keep returning

To watch them laugh and despair...

..before running across town
and into each other's arms

to live happily ever after.

In this series, I'll be looking at

some of cinema's
most enduring genres,

from the heist movie to horror.

I'll be exploring the conventions
which underwrite

our favourite movies and examining
the techniques film-makers use

to keep us coming back for more.

And I'm going to start with
perhaps the best-loved genre of all.

Romantic comedy,
or the rom-com.

I'll show you the key ingredients
of an affair you'll always remember.

It's a film for anyone
who's ever been in love.

Ask any filmgoer,
rather than a film critic,

to name their five favourite movies
and the chances are

at least one of them
will be a rom-com.

And, more than likely,
a rom-com whose plot

is some variation on one of
the oldest storytelling formulae -

boy meets girl, boy loses girl,
boy gets girl back again, the end.

It's the sheer simplicity
of this formula

that makes it
so endlessly reinterpretable.

So, over the years,
the basic set-up of the rom-com

has transmuted from
boy meets girl...

Mark?

..to girl meets boy...

You remember Bridget.

..to boy meets fish,

and girl meets girl,

to boy meets boy,

to girl meets fish.

More than any other genre,
the rom-com has universal appeal.

I mean, go to any cinema
in any country in the world

and the chances are
they'll be playing a rom-com.

Here, let me get it.

And wherever they play,

they'll probably begin with
characters looking for love.

I don't ask that much, do I?

I know, I don't ask to be famous,
and I don't ask to be rich,

and I don't ask to play centre field

for the New York Yankees
or anything.

I just want to meet a woman.

I want to meet a woman
and I want to fall in love,

and I want to get married,
and I want to have a kid,

and I want to go see him
play a tooth in the school play.

It's not... It's not much.

This is one of my favourite movies
of all time.

Ron Howard's Splash.

I must have seen this film 100 times

and I know every word
and every shot of it off by heart.

Hi.

It's the story of a man
who falls in love with a mermaid.

I take it you know this girl?

Yeah, I do.

Who is she?

I don't know.

Of course.

Now, Splash is silly and foolish
and fanciful,

but it makes me laugh
and it makes me cry.

To me, it's the perfect
romantic comedy.

A fairy tale in which
love is the magical element.

Splash brilliantly applies
the rom-com formula

to a classic three-act structure.

In act 1, man meets mermaid.

In act 2, man and mermaid
fall in love,

but, midway through,
man and mermaid are separated.

After a period of
heartache and despondency,

act 3 sees man overcome various
obstacles to get mermaid back.

The end.

Despite its fantastical premise,

Splash actually sticks pretty close
to long-established genre rules.

But it also tells us something
very interesting about the history,

the fluidity and the sheer
persistence of the rom-com.

Look at this sequence from Splash.

Madison, played by Daryl Hannah,

relaxes in a salt bath
which reveals her true nature.

She's a fish.

Now, that shot directly quotes
from this film.

A British fantasy-com from 1948

starring Glynis Johns
as the mermaid Miranda.

Miranda? This is Nurse Carey.

Hello, Nurse. Have an oyster.

It's a mermaid!
I've always believed in them.

Oh, Doctor, this is delightful!

Now, Miranda wasn't called
a rom-com,

that term didn't really come into
popular use until the late '60s,

and it wasn't included
in the OED until 1971.

But its mixture of
romance and comedy

proved hugely popular
with audiences,

making it one of the biggest
British box office hits of the year.

CROWD CHATTER

Now look at this.

Looks familiar?

Guillermo del Toro's
The Shape Of Water

has been compared to many movies.

But the one influence
on this Oscar-winning film

which nobody disputed was Splash.

In fact, Shape Of Water

is basically Splash meets
Creature From The Black Lagoon,

with Sally Hawkins as Tom Hanks
and Doug Jones as Daryl Hannah.

HE SCREECHES

Although it contains elements taken
directly from romantic comedies,

you wouldn't call Del Toro's
genre-shifting movie a rom-com.

It's more of
a fantastic dramatic fable.

Which perhaps explains why it was
nominated for a whopping 13 Oscars,

of which it won four,
including Best Picture.

By contrast, Splash picked up
just one Oscar nomination,

for Best Screenplay,
the one category in which

rom-coms do tend to get some kind
of awards recognition.

She's really hungry.

Critics often tend to think that

there's very little
that's challenging about rom-coms,

that they're just a bit of
formulaic fun.

But ask anyone
who's ever made a rom-com

and they'll tell you that
creating that effortlessness,

pulling off a series of specific
story moments or elements within

a surprising and satisfying overall
structure, is very hard indeed.

Let's look at those elements
in more detail,

beginning with one of
the most basic.

Introducing your leading characters
to the audience and to each other.

Uh... Summer, everyone.
Everyone, Summer.

Excuse me, I have to take this.

It's nice to meet you all.

The meet-cute has become a defining
characteristic of the rom-com,

establishing two characters
who are often polar opposites

and then setting them up
for a series of mishaps

in which they'll fall
in and out of love.

In The Holiday, Nancy Meyers'
transatlantic house-swap rom-com,

Eli Wallach's
aged Hollywood screenwriter

explains the purpose of
the meet-cute to Kate Winslet.

Well, this was some meet-cute.

Sorry? It's how two characters
meet in a movie.

Say, say a man and a woman

both need something to sleep in.

Uh-huh. And they both go to
the same men's pyjama department.

Right. And the man says to the
salesman, "I just need bottoms."

The woman says, "I just need a top."

They look at each other,

and that's the meet-cute.

Oh, I see!

Wallach is actually referring to the
1938 movie Bluebeard's Eighth Wife.

You tell your president
that if I can't buy pyjamas

without the trousers, I'll...
I'll buy the trousers.

Yes, I may buy the trousers.

How do you do? How do you do,
madame? How do you do, madame?
How do you do?

That goes on a lot, by the way -
one rom-com referring to another.

Characters are constantly

quoting lines from other rom-coms,
or watching them.

In Sleepless In Seattle,
for example,

Annie and Becky know every line
of An Affair To Remember.

TV: Winter must be cold
for those with no warm memories.

Why don't you try it on?

Oh. I'm sorry. Sorry.

John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale
kind of replay the meet-cute from

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife over a pair
of the same gloves in Serendipity.

Um... Listen, you take them,
I don't need them.

No, no, no, you saw them first.

So the meet-cute is an event that

doesn't have to be spectacular or
dramatic, but in some offbeat way,

has to force our prospective lovers
to notice each other.

To look into each other's eyes
for the first time.

Go soak your head and see if I care.

In The Lady Eve, Barbara Stanwyck
trips up Henry Fonda.

In Bringing Up Baby,

Katharine Hepburn
crashes Cary Grant's golf game.

Oh, dear.

You shouldn't do that, you know.
That...

What shouldn't I do?
Talk while someone's shooting.

Well, anyway, I forgive you
because I got a good shot.

But you don't understand. See,
there it is, right next to the pin.

But that has nothing to do with it.
Oh, are you playing through? No,

I've just driven off the first tee
and... I see you're a stranger here.

You should be over there.

This is the 18th fairway
and I'm right on the green.

Of course, when it comes to
the modern rom-com,

one name stands out above
the crowd - that of Nora Ephron.

A journalist who turned her hand to
screenwriting and then to directing,

Ephron was the master of

taking old rom-com traits
and turning them into something new.

Someone who knew how to
follow the rules

and break them at the same time.
Right from act 1.

Let's look at this establishing
scene from When Harry Met Sally...

In her screenplay,
which she wrote after

several eye-opening conversations
with director Rob Reiner,

Ephron describes finding a couple
in a fairly melodramatic embrace.

Then, a car pulls up.

And we see...

SHE CLEARS HER THROAT

SHE LOUDLY CLEARS HER THROAT

Oh, hi, Sally.

Sally, this is Harry Burns.

Harry, this is Sally Albright.

Nice to meet you.

So, this is the moment
when Harry meets Sally.

And what's lovely about it is that
neither Harry nor Sally

seemed particularly interested
in meeting each other.

Indeed, Harry is in the process of

swearing lifelong allegiance
to someone else. And Sally...

HORN HONKS

Sorry! ..is only interested in

the practicalities of
getting to New York.

The mundanity of Harry and Sally's
first meeting

is exactly what makes it so magical.

And, perversely,
what makes it so memorable.

It tells us that this is to be
no ordinary rom-com.

On the contrary,
it's a film that's going to

dance with rom-com conventions,

whilst constantly wrong-footing
its audience.

With precision and clarity,
the film has set out its stall,

mapped out its intentions.

Harry and Sally set off on a road
trip from Chicago to New York.

It's an 18-hour trip,

which breaks down into six shifts
of three hours each.

Or alternatively we could
break it down by mileage.

There's a...

There's a map on the visor

that I marked to show the locations
where we can change shifts.

With brilliant economy, Ephron and
Reiner tell us all we need to know

about Harry and Sally's
chalk and cheese characters,

establishing the opposing traits

which will clash and connect
throughout the movie.

Grape?

No, I don't like to eat
between meals.

HE SPITS

I'll roll down the window.

And, before we know it, we've
come to the nub of the matter.

The key conundrum at the centre of
When Harry Met Sally...

You realise, of course,
that we could never be friends?

Why not?

What I'm saying is -

and this is not a come-on
in any way, shape or form -

is that men and women
can't be friends,

because the sex part
always gets in the way.

Can Harry and Sally be friends?

And how are they ever
going to fall in love?

That, incidentally,
is a classic screenwriting device.

Some point around about
the 15-minute mark,

a character will
openly or explicitly state

the core theme of the story.

And by the end of the first act,
when Harry and Sally

meet not-very-cute
for the third time,

you really do want to know
how it's all going to end.

Sally Albright.

Hi, Harry. I thought it was you.

It is.

This is Marie.

Was Marie.

How are you? Fine.
How's Joe?

Nora Ephron was notable for being

one of the few
modern rom-com film-makers

whose work earned awards, and
to some extent critical approval.

Ephron's dialogue was typically
sharp and astringent in tone,

often in perfect counterpoint
to the plots.

There's a rhythm and a music
to her dialogue

which is full of sly aphorisms
and uncomfortable truths,

like a sort of modern-day
Dorothy Parker.

Destiny takes a hand.

Mom, destiny is something
we've invented

because we can't stand the fact

that everything that happens
is accidental.

Marriage doesn't work.
You know what works? Divorce.

Divorce is only
a temporary solution.

Marriages don't break up
on account of infidelity.

It's just a symptom that
something else is wrong.

Oh, really? Well, that symptom
is fucking my wife.

CROWD CHEERS

There aren't many
modern screenwriters

who can rival Nora Ephron,
but for me, Richard Curtis,

who wrote the Oscar-nominated
Four Weddings And A Funeral,

comes pretty close.

Now, I'm fully aware that
some serious-minded critics

can get very sniffy about
Curtis's output,

despite - or perhaps because of -
the fact that he's been responsible

for some of the most commercially
successful rom-coms of all time.

Um... Hi, Charles!

Hello, dear John, how are you?
How are you?

Good, good. This is, um...

Carrie. Carrie. Delighted, I'm John.
Hi, John.

HE CHUCKLES

So, John, how's that
gorgeous girlfriend of yours?

Oh, she's no longer my girlfriend.

Ah! Oh, dear. Still, I wouldn't
get too gloomy about it.

Rumour has it she never stopped
bonking old Toby de Lisle,
just in case you didn't work out.

She is now my wife.

In fact, Four Weddings
was critically well-received,

certainly in comparison
to Love Actually,

which Curtis directed
as well as wrote,

and which became the focus of
pointed critical barbs.

This is Aurelia.

Ah.

Er... Bonjour, Aurelia.

Bonjour.

HE SPEAKS BROKEN FRENCH

Unfortunately,
she cannot speak French.

Just like you.

Yet decades later, Love Actually has
proved itself to be

one of the most popular Brit pics of
all time, a Christmas staple

that's up there with
It's A Wonderful Life

in the affections of its fans.

And one of the reasons it's so
successful

is precisely because it knows
and plays with

so many of the genre's
most familiar tropes.

Take this meet-cute between
Hugh Grant's Prime Minister

and Martine McCutcheon's
Downing Street staffer.

Hello, Natalie. Hello, David.

I mean, sir. Shit, I can't believe
I just said that.

And now I've gone and said shit.
Twice.

I'm so sorry, sir.

It's fine, it's fine. You could have
said fuck and then we'd have been in

real trouble. Thank you, sir.

I did have an awful premonition
I was going to

fuck up on my first day.

It's a Cinderella-style
encounter which,

despite the fruity language
and modern political setting,

is firmly rooted in age-old myths of
handsome princes

and happy ever afters.

We know that these characters
are going to end up together.

DOORBELL RINGS

Is Natalie here?

Where the fuck is my fucking coat?

Oh! Hello.

Hello. Because at its heart,
this is a fairy tale.

Albeit a fairy tale with fucks.

It's no surprise that the underlying
themes of so many Disney animations

mirror the central story
of the rom-com.

Think, for example, of Snow White,

waiting for her prince to come and
carry her off to his shining castle.

Those kind of tropes can crop up in
the most unexpected places.

Liverpool in the 1980s may look
about as far from Disney

as you can get, but
Letter To Brezhnev still contains

clear traces of those fairy-tale
elements that are so prevalent

in rom-coms.

I've dreamt about you.

I suppose just the typical
bored teenager's dream.

You know, the handsome man from the
mysterious East

coming and whisking you away.

Writer Frank Clark and director
Chris Bernard's film tells the story

of a young woman who, like
Snow White or Cinderella,

meets her handsome prince
in the form of a Russian sailor,

only to be separated almost
immediately from her true love.

You might not think of
Letter To Brezhnev as a fairy tale.

After all, the movie is rooted in
the harsh realities of Thatcher's

Britain. And it's not afraid of
portraying a world

in which prospects are limited,
dreams are crushed,

and people are afraid of losing
what little they have.

But while some films take pains to
disguise their fairy-tale origins,

other rom-coms use music
and even dance

to play up their fantastical nature.

Take a look at this from 1896.

This is reportedly the first kiss
captured on moving film.

And it caused a sensation.

But it's no random smooch.

The actors, May Irwin and John Rice,

are re-enacting a scene from a stage
musical in which they starred

called The Widow Jones.

In popular entertainment,

romance and music have long been
intertwined.

The beginnings of rom-com

in the movies are in the days of
silent comedy.

Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and
Harold Lloyd blending slapstick with

pathos and melodrama, often to
ridiculous romantic effect.

In 1927, the silent movie It
starring Clara Bow

brought many of the elements

together as a poor shop girl falls
for the heir to a retail empire.

But the arrival of sound in the late
1920s triggered an explosion

of musicals in which the guy

who was the best singer and dancer
got the girl.

But only if she too
could sing and dance.

# Night and day
Night and day

# Under the hide of me... #

In fact, the rules of the rom-com as
we currently understand them

were set in stone in the
Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers

films of the early 1930s.

Rules which still persist
in the 21st century.

# ..My life making love to you

# Day and night, night and day! #

The Gay Divorcee helped establish
the song and dance sequence

as the beating heart of the rom-com.

To this day, rom-coms and musicals
remain twin genres,

with each feeding upon the other.

# Gaa raha hai yeh saara aalam... #

In Bollywood, the musical interlude
is still an essential part

of mainstream film-making.

Characters will break into
song and dance,

often via elaborate
flights of fantasy.

# Zoobi doobi zoobi doobi pampaara

# Zoobi doobi parampam

# Zoobi doobi zoobi doobi
naache kyun

# Paagal stupid man

# Zoobi doobi... #

Or sometimes just in the middle
of the street.

Look at this scene from
2003's Kal Ho Naa Ho.

Set in New York, the movie is a
classic love triangle,

toplined by international
superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

The setting is realistic,

and the narrative deals with
the thorny subject of death.

But we're never that far away
from a song and dance number.

# Pretty woman, hey!

# Pretty woman, dekho dekho na

# Pretty woman

# Pretty woman, dekho dekho na

# Pretty woman... #

While the modern Hollywood
or British rom-com

may seem very different from
a Bollywood movie,

those musical beats are still there,

even if they're
a little more hidden,

often in the form
of a musical montage.

# Woke up this morning, feeling fine

# Had something special
on my mind... #

That's become such a staple of the
rom-com genre that the makers

of The Naked Gun were able to parody
it to hilarious effect

in this infamous
getting-to-know-you sequence.

The musical montage can provide
a very effective editing device

to compress days or even weeks of
events into less than

a minute of screen time.

I had a wonderful day, Frank.

I can't believe we just met
yesterday.

But that element of the magical
and the surreal,

which we so associate with classic
musicals and Disney fairy tales,

always seems waiting to burst out.

Look at this sequence from Notting
Hill in which the seasons change

around Hugh Grant as his character
is separated

from Julia Roberts's
actress heroine.

# Ain't no sunshine when she's
gone... #

It's a great evocation of the loss
of love, which we've all felt.

And it's choreographed
with the precision

of an extravagantly mounted
dance number.

# Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

# And she's always gone too long

# Any time she goes away... #

Now look at this lovely fantasy
sequence from (500) Days Of Summer.

# Well, well, well, you... #

Tom is glowing from having finally
hooked up with the eponymous Summer,

and he's very happy.

So happy he could...

# On a night when bad dreams
become a screamer

# When they're messin'
with a dreamer

# I can laugh it in the face

# Twist and shout my way out... #

Director Marc Webb is playing with
our expectations of the rom-com.

He knows that we're expecting
a musical montage,

and he pushes the reality
into the realms of fantasy,

as Tom finds himself literally
walking into a musical.

# You make my dreams come true... #

Dance sequences seem to be making
a return to the mainstream,

at least as far as
the Academy Awards are concerned.

At the 2017 Oscars, the film that
was mistakenly announced

as the Best Picture winner
was a full-on musical...

MOBILE RINGS

..while the film that actually did
win the 2018 Best Picture Oscar

features an escapist
musical sequence.

In this sublime fantasy scene,

The Shape Of Water succumbs to its
genre roots and breaks into song

as Sally Hawkins' mute heroine
finally finds her voice.

..just how much...

# ..I care

# And if I tried
I still couldn't hide

# My love for you

# You are to me... #

And the movie takes us right back
to Fred and Ginger

in the heyday of the musical
in the 1930s.

But if our characters live in the
kind of world where they can

break into song and dance
at any moment,

why should we take them seriously,
and invest in their relationship?

Well, you can believe almost
anything

if you're watching the right actors.

Dexter, are you sure? Not in the
least, but I'll risk it, will you?

You bet. You didn't do it just to
soften the blow? Not exactly.

Nor to save my face?
No, it's a nice little face.

Oh, Dexter, I'll be yare,
I'll promise to be yare.

Be whatever you like, you're my
redhead. You all set? All set!

Rom-coms are often defined
by their casting.

Think of Cary Grant and Katharine
Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story,

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in Sleepless
In Seattle and You've Got Mail,

Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan in Dilwale
Dulhania Le Jayenge,

or Richard Gere and Julia Roberts
in Pretty Woman.

I want to find Beverly Hills,
can you give me directions?

Sure. Five bucks.

Ridiculous. All these screen couples
seem perfectly cast,

you can't really imagine anyone else
playing those roles.

But sometimes perfect casting
can be accidental.

Julia Roberts picked up an Oscar
nomination for her lead role

in Pretty Woman, but her co-star
Richard Gere

only landed the role after Al Pacino
and Burt Reynolds

had both reportedly
turned it down. For 20?

For 20, I'll show you personal.
Even show you where the stars live.

That's all right, I've already been
to Stallone's. Right.

When Rob Reiner was casting
When Harry Met Sally,

he thought about Albert Brooks
for the male lead,

a character Nora Ephron says was
based on Reiner himself,

before opting for his old friend
Billy Crystal,

conversations with whom
had inspired key scenes.

For the role of Sally,

Reiner had considered both Susan Dey
and Elizabeth Perkins,

and was on the verge of casting
Molly Ringwald.

Only when that fell through did the
role finally fall to Meg Ryan

and her famously sparkling eyes.

What?

Do I have something on my face?

Look at rom-com leads and the way
their eyes sparkle.

Sparkle is created by catch lights,
known in the industry as Obies,

after actress Mel Oberon,

giving the eye a pinpoint of light
that makes it glitter.

No-one's eyes sparkle more than
Meg Ryan's,

and once a sparkly new rom-com
star has been born,

casting directors
are loath to let them go.

Which may be why the same faces
pop up again and again.

So wonderful.

One reason to celebrate rom-coms as
a genre

is that they've generally
been well ahead of the pack

when it comes
to giving women strong,

intelligent roles
with good dialogue,

which in turn attracts good actors.

Think back to the Hollywood
screwball comedies

of the '30s and '40s,
to films like His Girl Friday...

Would you mind if I sat down?

There's been a lamp burning in the
window for you, honey, here.

Oh, I jumped out that window
a long time ago.

..and The Lady Eve.

Stop that. Must I?

Oh, sorry, I thought it was the
horse. No, it was me.

Eve? Yes, Charles?

I suppose you know
what I'm thinking about.

Possibly, I have an idea.

These were slapstick-filled rom-coms
told at a furious pace

with wisecracking central
partnerships,

in which women gave
as good as they got.

A ridiculous story about a leopard.
It's not a ridiculous story.

I have a leopard. Well, where is the
leopard? Right in here.

I don't believe you, Susan. But you
have to believe me.

I've been a victim of your unbridled
imagination once more.

Ooh!

That'll teach you to go round
saying things about me.

Bringing Up Baby
is a classic example.

We've already seen the meet-cute,

in which Katharine Hepburn
toys with her prey, Cary Grant,

on the golf course.

She spends the rest of the movie
pursuing him,

with a baby leopard playing a
bizarre role

in the inevitable scuppering
of his forthcoming wedding.

She's definitely the hunter,
and Grant the hunted.

What about my leopard?

That's your problem.
It's not all my problem.

Susan, will you please go away?

All right, David.
Since he likes you so much,

I've decided to give him to you.

I won't take him. You've got him.

LEOPARD SNARLS

This was of course leading up
to and during World War II.

Hollywood's golden era.

A time when women in Britain and
America were by far the largest

constituent of the cinema audience,

and were taking up increasingly more
pivotal roles in society

and the economy. In The Lady Eve,
for instance, Barbara Stanwyck

and director and co-writer
Preston Sturges give us one of

the funniest and strongest female
characters in cinema,

a con woman taking Henry Fonda's
heir to a beer fortune for a ride

and inadvertently
falling in love with him.

He's returning to his book.

He is deeply immersed in it.

He sees no-one except...

..watch his head turn when
that kid goes by.

Won't do you any good, dear.

He's a bookworm...

If there's a dominant point of view
in this movie it's Stanwyck's.

That view is brilliantly set up
by Sturges in a scene in

which she, in a room full
of other women,

eye up a handsome but oblivious
leading man,

Fonda's naive Charles Pike,

all coolly assessed in Stanwyck's
hand mirror.

You don't like her either? Well,
what are you going to do about it?

Oh, you just can't stand it
any more, you're leaving,

these women don't give you
a moment's peace, do they?

Well, go ahead. Go sulk in
your cabin. Go soak your head

and see if I care.

Henry Fonda, by the way,

proves himself the master
of the cinematic pratfall,

literally falling
for Stanwyck over and over.

Toodle-oo. So long.

So, rom-coms have long had a history
of breaking the male-dominated model

of mainstream cinema, but the genre
isn't entirely free

of its own gender stereotypes.

A staple of rom-coms past and
present is the heroine

who is too busy pursuing her career
to make time for love,

often the neurotic single girl
or divorced woman.

Welcome to the launch
of Kafka's Motorbike,

the greatest book of our time.

Obviously, except for your books,
Mr Rushdie,

which are also very good.

Bridget Jones is perhaps the most
famous modern example,

but that character,

which began life in Helen Fielding's
newspaper column,

has many distant
cinematic relatives,

ranging from Barbara Stanwyck's
cynical cookery writer

in Christmas In Connecticut...

You'll wake up the baby.

The baby?! Well, it's borrowed.
I mean, it's adopted.

..to Angela Bassett's single mother
stockbroker

in How Stella Got
Her Groove Back.

You need a husband, and your
son needs a father.

I had one, got rid of him,
so glad I did.

And the last time I checked, Walter
was still Quincey's father,

in case you've forgotten.
You still need a man in your life.

Look, Angela, just because
Kennedy writes, produces,

directs and stars in all three acts
of your drama, don't fool yourself.

Every woman doesn't need
that kind of guidance.

I'm not used to girls like you.

That's because I'm one of a kind.

And then there's the girl who seems
to embody the free spirit

of the women of the golden age

but whose key role is actually
to take a dull male protagonist

and show him a good time,

while often showing no sign
of an independent life of her own.

The rest of our lives... Hey.

Now we actually have a shot
at being friends.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl
is a 21st-century term,

coined by film critic Nathan Rabin
who said in his review

of Cameron Crowe's terrible rom-com
Elizabethtown,

that such characters exist solely in
the fevered imaginations

of sensitive writer-directors

to teach broodingly soulful
young men to embrace life

and all its infinite
mysteries and adventures.

A far more credible take on
contemporary

male-female relationships came to us
via the break-out rom-com

hit of 2017...
Is Pakistan in the house?

Woo!

Really? You're not from Pakistan.

I would have noticed you.

The Big Sick was inspired by the
real-life relationship

of leading man Kumail Nanjiani and
co-writer Emily V Gordon,

whose character Zoe Kazan
plays on screen.

What's your name? Emily.

Here, I want to show you something,
Emily.

This is your name in Urdu.

Oh!

Does this move work?

I've had some minor success with it.
Bullshit.

There was a similar blend of
autobiography and invention

in Annie Hall...

You want a lift? Oh, why?

You got a car?

Me? No. I was going to take a cab.

Oh, no. I have a car.

You have a car?

So, I don't understand.

If you have a car, so, then, why did
you say, "Do you have a car?",

like you wanted a lift?

I don't... I don't...

..in which Diane Keaton,
whose real name is Diane Hall,

won an Oscar playing a role that was
essentially

a fictionalised version of herself.

I told you it's a mistake to ever
bring a live thing in the house.

Stop it. Don't do that. Maybe we
should just call the police.

Dial 911, it's the lobster squad.

So natural is the chemistry
between her and Woody Allen,

whom Keaton had dated in real life,

that you almost forget that Annie
and Alvy aren't real characters.

One crawled behind the refrigerator.
It'll turn up in our bed at night.

Will you get out of here with that
thing?! Jesus!

Talk to him. You speak shellfish!

That sort of chemistry
can't be taken for granted.

Much as I love Four Weddings
And A Funeral, and I do,

I've never entirely bought into
the idea that

Hugh Grant and Andie McDowell
were made for each other.

Instead, I find myself more
interested in the fate

of Kristin Scott Thomas's Fiona,
a friend of Grant's Charles,

whose feelings go rather deeper.

How about you, Fi-Fi?

Have you identified a future partner
for life yet?

No need, really.

Deed is done.

I've been in love with
the same bloke for ages.

Have you?

Who's that?

You, Charlie.

It's a poignant scene, thoughtfully
written and subtly played,

but perhaps it's just too affecting,

almost knocking the film
out of balance.

And it always leaves me wondering,

wouldn't Four Weddings be just that
little bit better

if Charles ended up
with Fiona, rather than Carrie?

Jerry, how does it look?
Tell me frankly.

It looks like a sunrise
by Maxfield Parrish.

But the role of the friend and
confidant in a rom-com

is a key one, and one way of
preventing any untoward chemistry

has been via the trope of the
GBF - the gay best friend.

You know, Jerry, I can't imagine
what's got into Madge recently.

She's never hit me before.

Maybe she just never
thought of it before.

That's a stereotype which is
essentially a riff

on the sidekick role that Edward
Everett Horton played

in Top Hat in 1935.

Rupert Everett tried to bring
something new to the character

in My Best Friend's Wedding, but
it's thin material to work with.

SHE SCREAMS, HE SCREAMS

George!

Traditionally, the GBF tended to be
someone in whom

the central character could confide,
someone from the opposite sex

who presents no sexual threat.

Just as Nora Ephron suggested that
men and women could never be friends

because the sex part always gets in
the way,

the gay best friend solved the
problem with which rom-coms had long

wrestled but did so in a weirdly
patronising and neutralising manner.

What a hideous room.

God, death by minibar.

How glamorous.

Today's rom-coms are of course
far more polymorphous

than their predecessors, thanks in
no small part

to the influence of
indie comedies like Go Fish,

Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss
and But I'm A Cheerleader.

We're afraid you're being
influenced by that..

..way of thinking...

..unnatural...

Do you remember the woman on TV?

Honey, we think you're a...

WHISPERS: ..lesbian.

Huh?

Now look at Love Is Strange
from 2014.

You guys. Your love,
your dedication,

your commitment to each other

are an example to be followed.

May this love, may this marriage
last for ever and beyond.

To Ben and George. Thank you.

CHEERING

And to Petra!

It's a mainstream film about
a long-established relationship

between two men, played by
John Lithgow and Alfred Molina.

# Baby!

# You've got what it takes... #

Not just in the kitchen.

# ..Ooh, baby

# You've got what it takes. #

PIANO PLAYS FINAL FLOURISH

Despite problems with
the American ratings board,

who ridiculously slapped a
restrictive R rating

on what was basically
a PG-13 film, this lovely,

insightful rom-com
earned rave reviews

and proved a hit with audiences
male and female, gay and straight.

Hey!

I like your boots!

I said, I like your boots!

Goodbye.

And, in 2018,

critics and audiences alike embraced
a romantic comedy

about gay characters that was
unashamedly aimed

at a mainstream family audience.

Since its premiere at Australia's
Mardi Gras Film Festival,

Love Simon,
starring Nick Robinson,

has been helped to box office
success

with that all-important
family friendly PG-13 rating.

Is this the best indicator yet
that, in mainstream cinema,

heterosexuality
is no longer the norm?

And that with good writing and great
casting, today's audiences

will invest in characters regardless
of their sexual orientation?

We can but hope.

Classical drama requires
a situation,

followed by complications.

In the rom-com, the complications
usually involve

a temporary break-up, prompted by
an argument, a revelation,

an unexpected plot development,
or perhaps an interfering parent,

or that old favourite,
the unsuitable partner.

Look at this clip from
The Truth About Cats & Dogs.

A very underrated rom-com,

in which Janeane Garofalo finds Uma
Thurman crying after filling in

a magazine quiz and being told
she suffers from loser-guy syndrome.

What's wrong?

Nothing.

What, tell me?

Turns out Roy is a loser.

Tell me something I don't know.

Oh! I was kidding.

I'm sorry.

Oh, no! Don't cry.

The unsuitable partner,
or loser guy,

is the person that the pursued party
is already hooked up with

and has to be got out of the way.

From Jean Hagan in
Singin' In The Rain,

to Bill Pullman
in Sleepless In Seattle,

rom-coms are full of partners
who are destined to be dumped

by one or other of the lovestruck
main characters.

Marriage is hard enough without
bringing

such low expectations into it.

Isn't it?

Walter, I don't deserve you.

Charles, I'd like you to meet
Hamish, my fiance.

Excellent.

Excellent. How do you do, Hamish?

Delighted to meet you.

These unsuitable partners are
all too often wet blankets.

It's much more fun when they have
proper romantic lead credentials

of their own.

All right, Cleaver, outside.

I'm sorry? Outside?

Should I bring my duelling pistols
or my sword?

And the unsuitable partners
don't have to be men.

Do you really think
I need to go to a party?

You have to do this!

Did you forget who the fuck I am?!

I turned down Bradley Cooper,
Matt Kemp, Matt fucking Kemp!

I could have had anybody!

I chose you, Dre.

Everybody wanted to wife me
and I chose you.

But once all those unsuitable
partners are out of the way,

the rom-com throws the greatest
obstacle in our protagonists' path.

I don't understand this
relationship.

What do you mean? You enjoy being
with her? Yeah.

You find attractive? Yeah.
And you're not sleeping with her?

No.

You're afraid to let
yourself be happy.

Every lover in every rom-com has to
go through a moment of despair,

usually at the end of the second act
or around the three-quarter point.

I miss Annie.
I made a terrible mistake.

The lovers part, and it's often a
good excuse for another

music-driven montage, such as here
in Bridget Jones' Diary,

when Colin Firth
literally flies out of reach.

# Out of reach

# Couldn't see... #

The purpose of this scene is to show
our protagonists that

perhaps the biggest obstacle
to true love is themselves,

whether it's because of their
insecurities,

selfishness, or fear of commitment.

In Groundhog Day,

Bill Murray begins the movie

as an egocentric but also
self-hating weatherman.

This is pitiful.

1,000 people.

Freezing their butts off,
waiting to worship a rat.

What a hike.

So self hating, in fact,
that when he gets stuck

in a time loop, he resorts to
killing himself, many times.

Oh, my God!

Phil!

He might be OK.

When he's reached rock bottom, he
has to come to terms with himself,

he has to learn to be good,

and he realises that he'll never be
complete without Andie McDowell,

playing the love interest here
before swiftly moving on to

Hugh Grant in Four Weddings.

You knew I was waiting for midnight!

Does this mean you're going
to leave?

No...

Good.

Perhaps the newest addition
to the rom-com canon

is the so-called grey rom-com.

While Hollywood is making
fewer mid-budget films in general,

films about romance in later life
are on the rise.

Mr Sandborn, did you take any Viagra
today?

Mr Sandborn?

No.

No Viagra. OK, good.

Just need to be sure, because I put
nitroglycerin into your drip

and if you had taken Viagra,
the combination could be fatal.

These films often star actors

who also appeared in romantic movies
in their youth,

notably Diane Keaton,

who, in Nancy Meyers'
Something's Got To Give,

could very easily be playing
an older version

of her classic role, Annie Hall.

Aah!

I think we should take
your blood pressure.

My blood pressure? I think
it's irresponsible not to.

Interestingly, while
the unsuitable partners

in Something's Got To Give
are younger men and women,

the major obstacle Jack Nicholson
faces is death, or how to avoid it,

which means finding love
with Diane Keaton.

120/80. Oh, baby!

The Grim Reaper doesn't only haunt
grey rom-coms -

he's busy waving his scythe
at Shah Rukh Khan in Kal Ho Naa Ho,

and of course, he put the funeral
in Four Weddings.

Now, this dark side helps

the life-affirming, romantic
elements of the story stand out,

but it works both ways.

Some of the darkest films
I can think of

have surprising rom-com echoes.

How about this for a structure?

Boy meets girl...

You could come back to my lab.

I'll make you a cappuccino.

..boy fuses himself with insect
in teleporter mishap...

..boy begs girl to shoot him
in the head...

No!

..and we fuse the rom-com with
another species of film entirely.

A remake of the 1958 horror film,

David Cronenberg's The Fly is a
great example of the dark version

of the primal myth of the rom-com.

SHE SOBS

Can we get someone to clean

the bits of Jeff Goldblum
off the floor, please?

Even the dream girl can become
a nightmare,

with rom-coms morphing into classic
Gothic romance.

Look at Audition,
by director Miike Takashi.

The premise of this Japanese shocker
sounds like the set-up

for a sharp rom-com -

a lonely widower who organises fake
movie auditions to meet dates

and stumbles upon his dream girl.

THEY SPEAK IN JAPANESE

In many of the film's early scenes,

Miike is deliberately playing
with rom-com conventions,

using cinematic sleight of hand
to wrong-foot the audience,

lulling them into a false sense
of security.

And then this happens...

PHONE RINGS

But both Audition and The Fly
do more than just cleverly play

with our expectations.

That infusion of rom-com DNA
lends them

an emotional depth and resonance.

They become not just shockers,
but tragedies.

Even that defining romantic comedy
of the 1970s, Annie Hall,

hides a darker element.

In one early version of the script,

after this scene in which Alvy and
Annie miss the start of a movie,

there was to be a murder.

Jesus, what did you do?
Come by way of the Panama Canal?

I'm in a bad mood, OK? Bad mood?

I'm standing with the cast
of The Godfather!

You're going to have to learn
to deal with it.

I'm dealing with two guys
named Cheech!

But Allen and co-writer
Marshall Brickman decided

to drop the murder plot

and stick to
the relationship comedy.

A version of that unused plot

finally surfaced 16 years later
in Manhattan Murder Mystery,

which again featured Allen
and Keaton as a couple.

We solved the mystery.

Yeah, we solved the mystery -
remember?

It was the
noises-in-the-attic mystery.

The country house, the bluebird.
I know.

But that was a sweet mystery.
This is a murder.

You agree, right?
No, I... It's murder!

No, I forbid you.
I forbid you to go.

I'm forbidding. Is that what you do
when I forbid you?

Director Paul Thomas Anderson
knows a thing or two

about Gothic romances -
his recent Phantom Thread

has more than a touch of
Daphne Du Maurier about it.

But his 2002 film Punch-Drunk Love
inhabits a very interesting place

between light and dark fantasies.

Hi. Do you work at the mechanic's?
No.

They're not open yet. They don't
get open until eight o'clock.

Is it OK if I leave my car,
do you think?

I don't know. I don't know.

The movie centres on an awkward love
affair between Adam Sandler's shy

Barry Egan and Emily Watson's
Lena Leonard.

Barry's sisters are trying
to set him up with Lena.

He resists. She persists.

They fall in love.
He does something wrong.

He loses her.

Barry sets out on a mission
to win Lena back.

And he gets her back. The end.

It's the classic formula
once again.

Except, if you look a little bit
more closely,

some very strange things
are going on indeed.

In an early scene in a supermarket,

while Barry is browsing the shelves
in the foreground,

eagle-eyed viewers will notice
that in the background,

he seems to be being stalked by
a figure who may well be Lena,

suggesting it's her, not him,
who is socially problematic.

Now, this could be the set-up
for a rerun of Audition,

but Punch-Drunk Love resists
the slide to darkness,

because other forces are at work,

in its colour palette,
costume design,

and subtle hints in the script.

Barry always wears blue,
while Lena wears red.

Look closer still.

Barry is obsessed with flying.

His dream is to earn unlimited air
miles through coupons on pudding.

like Superman.

Barry also appears to have
unusual strength.

And at one point in the film,

he literally tries to jump
and fly away.

So, Barry may be Superman.

Which brings us
to Superman: The Movie -

a prototype superhero film

and the origin of today's
Marvel blockbusters,

a brand-new cycle of
modern fairy tales.

Say, Jim! Whoa! Excuse me.

That's a bad outfit!

But Superman is also, of course,

a screwball rom-com

about the awkward relationship

between Clark Kent and Lois Lane.

As always, these genres
are intertwined.

What the hell is that?!

Easy, miss. I've got you.

You've got me? Who's got you?!

It's worth noting in passing, too,

that superhero films, which have
often been stuck

in the geek-bloke niche, became
box office behemoths by going

out of their way to bring in
female audiences.

They didn't just do this by having
female superheroes,

but also by casting male pin-ups

like Christopher Reeve,
Hugh Jackman,

Chris Hemsworth and, more recently,
Chadwick Boseman...

..and stressing the soap opera
romance angle,

so Superman and Spider-Man spend
as much time on their love lives

as fighting diabolical masterminds
and bank robbers.

All things which studios think
will bring in a female audience.

As we've already noted, musicals owe
a debt to the fantasy film genre,

with dreamy sequences taking us
out of the present day

and into elaborate fantasies.

No wonder both are so
closely related to rom-coms.

Wait!

Who are you?

A friend.

Remember what Tom Hanks said
at the start of Splash?

I want to meet a woman
and I want to fall in love

and I want to get married
and I want to have a kid

and I want to go see him play
a tooth in the school play.

That's... That's not much.

Well, after he's won
his mermaid back,

Hanks swims off to live happily ever
after in her underwater kingdom,

where I'm sure
they have underwater school plays.

# One fine day

# Love came for me... #

Everyone loves
a happy ending, right?

Well, when it comes to rom-coms,
that's usually the case.

With the genre's roots
in fairy tales,

the conventions demand
a happy ending.

That rush across town...

..that moment when their eyes meet

and our protagonists finally
see love...

..and that long-awaited
true love's kiss -

it's what we've been waiting for,
after all.

But endings are not always meant
to be happy.

Take Pretty Woman.

That film started life
as a script entitled 3,000,

about a hooker and a rich asshole,
from the writer-director

of Piranha Women In
The Avocado Jungle Of Death.

Really.

They are two incredible chicks...

I am not a chick!

I'm an ethno-historian with a
doctorate in cultural anthropology.

Got that?

During development,
the story changed.

It became softer and probably,
therefore, more successful.

In the original script,

the character played
by Julia Roberts

catches a bus to Disneyland
with her female best friend.

Sure you won't come with me?

And leave all this?
Not in a million.

In the finished film, Julia Roberts
winds up with Richard Gere.

So, what happened after

he climbed up the tower
and rescued her?

She rescues him right back.

But which of those two outcomes
is actually the happy end?

Isn't it a better finale
to have the two girlfriends

finding their independence together,

rather than having one of them
marry a man we already know

lives in a horrible world,
full of horrible rich people?

But in a rom-com, we allow ourselves
to leave the real world behind

and to believe that love
really does conquer all.

And what if we're not prepared

to let things rest
with that final kiss?

Perhaps we can take hope
from La La Land,

with its last real musical
fantasy sequence,

which allows us to glimpse
how things might have been

whilst acknowledging how
they probably are.

Nothing lasts for ever.

Except rom-coms themselves.

One, two,
one, two, three, four...

Here goes.

Next time - from The Asphalt Jungle
to Baby Driver,

how to pull off
the perfect heist movie.