{"id":19973,"date":"2016-07-03T10:28:20","date_gmt":"2016-07-03T09:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=19973"},"modified":"2016-07-03T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T09:30:00","slug":"the-enduring-appeal-of-the-rom-com-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=19973","title":{"rendered":"The enduring appeal of the rom-com movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our lecturer told us that all stories have four basic elements: world, characters, tone, and plot. All rom-coms have essentially the same plot: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back (or, of course, a reversal of these gender roles). \u00a0So, to make a rom-com different, the writer and director need to manipulate the other three story elements: world, character, tone.<\/p>\n

At the opening of the course, each of us was invited to name our favourite rom-com and a recent one that we have seen. I offered “When Harry Met Sally …”<\/em> [my review here<\/a>]\u00a0<\/em>and “The Meddler” <\/em>[my review here<\/a>]\u00a0<\/em>respectively.<\/p>\n

During the one-day course, we were shown clips from 11 films – not all of which I would regard as rom-coms: “The General”<\/em>, “It Happened One Night”<\/em>, “On<\/em>ce” [my review here<\/a>], “About A Boy”<\/em> [my review here<\/a>], “The Third Man”<\/em>, “Tootsie”<\/em>, “Fever Pitch”<\/em> [my review here<\/a>], “Knocked Up”<\/em> [my review here<\/a>], \u00a0“Music & Lyrics”<\/em> [my review here<\/a>], one segment of\u00a0“Paris Je T’aime”<\/em>, and “Sideways”<\/em> [my review here<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Which is your favourite rom-com?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"