FROM HOLLYWOOD WITH LOVE

An enthusiastic fan traces the evolution of modern romantic comedies.

Beginning in 1989 with Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally…, the “most romantic rom-com of all time,” first-time author Meslow’s comprehensive film history focuses on 16 of the most significant of these character-driven films over the past three decades. Along the way, the author provides informative, in-depth “essays” on key performers—Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant, Adam Sandler, Sandra Bullock, Reese Witherspoon, Will Smith—and insightful backstories about directors, writers, producers, and others who were also responsible for this genre’s success. Regarding Pretty Woman, the author writes that the “confused, inefficient, eventually serendipitous development and production process is what ended up giving [the film] its unique texture.” Love Potion No. 9 “set the template for the rom-com and rom-com-adjacent roles on which Bullock would build her career.” In 1995, when the “full-blown cultural phenomenon” that was Four Weddings and a Funeral was nominated for a best-picture Oscar, it gave the genre more critical credibility. Waiting To Exhale proved that a rom-com based on a Black female writer’s book and four Black actresses could reach a wide audience. In 1998, There’s Something About Mary, the “raunch-com” written and directed by the Farrelly brothers, “expanded Hollywood’s understanding about what a rom-com could look like.” Three years later, writes Meslow, the “constant blizzard of skepticism around [Renee] Zellweger’s casting” in Bridget Jones’s Diary was “both premature and unwarranted, but it was also a reminder to the movie’s creators that the stakes were perilously high.” Now an established, successful genre, it could explore new territory—e.g., aging in Something’s Gotta Give, a “vague hand-waving” over abortion in Knocked Up, and a “major and important step forward” with Asian American director Jon Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians. Meslow predicts ups and downs in the future, like with any genre, but “real love stories never have endings.” Included throughout are bits of trivia.

A sprightly homage to a popular, seemingly evergreen film genre.