Research of Genre

Romantic comedies are a sub genre of comedy films as well as romantic films. They are centred on romantic ideals such as true love but are light hearted and have humorous plot lines in which two lovers are, in the end, united. These characters tend to be young, likeable and there are hints that the two would be a good match throughout the film yet they are kept apart by some complicating circumstance and don’t become romantically involved either because they believe that they do not like each other, because one of them already has a partner or because of social issues.
In Rom Coms the potential couple are often polar opposites, two people of different temperaments, situations or social statuses, or all three and would not usually be matched as a couple. It is not always two lead characters ending up in each other’s arms. Another love match may be made between one of the principal characters and a secondary character, for example, in ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ and ‘My Super Ex-Girlfriend’.
 This is more like the line that we are going down with our plot.

A popular convention of romantic comedy films is the contrived encounter of two potential romantic partners in unusual or comic situations. A humorous sense of awkwardness between the two is made by depicting an initial clash of personalities or beliefs, an embarrassing situation, or by introducing a comical misunderstanding or mistaken identity situation. This circumstance has been called a ‘meet cute’ by film critics. The use of a ‘meet cute’ is less needed in television series’ and novels as these formats have more time to establish and develop romantic relationships. An example of this is in ‘The Holiday’ when Cameron Diaz’s character, Amanda, meets Jude Law’s character, Graham, after she swaps her Los Angeles home for a London house and Graham comes knocking after being at the pub in need of using his sister’s loo only to find that his sister was no longer there.


There is almost always a ‘Grand Gesture’ at the end for the couple to unite.

High key lighting and upbeat music is what is usually used in order to keep the film light-hearted.