Ok so this started because my wife said "every rom-com is the same movie" and I took that personally.
I tracked four moments across 35 films, when they meet, when you know before they do, when it falls apart, and when they find their way back.
She was right. The pattern is almost scary. Hollywood's been running on the same clock for 35 years.
A few things I can't stop thinking about:
– The Notebook's real villain isn't distance. It's 365 letters that never arrived.
– Sleepless in Seattle, the two leads don't actually meet until insanely late in the film
– (500) Days of Summer breaks the formula completely and that's why it hurts different
Full breakdown with movie stills here.
Which rom-com destroyed you the most?
by Mastbubbles
19 Comments
the notebook hits different when you realize Noah literally built a house with his bare hands just to keep a promise
Hallmark literally has a business that is cranking out the same Christmas movie with a different suit/dress once a week for the last like 10 years and it came to this for you to realize all RomComs are basically the same boilerplate plot?
Punch drunk love, map that one.
It’s rom-coms and lots of TV series where I hear a critic or writer going on about how A.I is destroying creativity and think about the fact that vast amounts are in effect recycled tropes and wonder if they don’t know that. Many Rom-coms or hallmark Christmas film have in effect been rehashs of old scripts for decades.
I’ll nominate Sliding Doors as one that just about fits rom-com that’s worth rewatching.
I love that you cared enough to take a deep dive.
I am comforted and sad by these movies.
But the great thing…its therapy. You laugh and cry and its ok because we are allowed to feel.
Thanks for your efforts
It’s rare for me to cry at movies but the only romcom to do it was the notebook. I’ve watched it once, had my heart broken by it and have never watched it since. 10 outta 10 experience.
It’s a genre. Every genre has conventions and structures that get repeated, then parodied, and sometimes perfected.
You could do the same for slasher movies, 90s schlockbusters, 40s noir.
People like genre films BECAUSE they’re predictable. People like romcoms because you know what you’re getting.
This is like watching someone order a pizza every time you go to an Italian and pointing out there’s always a red sauce under the cheese.
My guy.
Was this new to you? It’s lesson one in any creative writing course. But I admire the work you put in to actually check and graph it!
This isn’t just rom coms. You could do this with lots of genres. Stories have a certain common geography to them. Different people classified them in different ways. Campbell had Hero with a Thousand Faces. Booker had the Seven Basic Plots.
The Notebook villain was definitely Allie’s mom, that’s for sure
Rom-coms all feel the same right up until one of them hits the exact emotional bruise you weren’t planning on touching.
Who TF classifies The Notebook as a rom-com?
The Sure Thing is a Rom Com, Rob Reiner directed. Great movie. Doesn’t quite follow the formula. They spark at different times. He initially is attracted to her but on a shallow basis. She finds him immature. Over a coincidental road trip they quietly come to appreciate each other and realize they no longer wanted what they thought they did. Great movie and very funny. Often overlooked because the title and premise make it seem like an 80s “get laid” film but it’s Rob Reiner so it’s great. John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga, Anthony Edwards, and Tim Robbins are in it with small part by Nicolette Sheridan.
Surely The Notebook is a romantic drama, rather than a RomCom
It’s not about the plot though. It’s about the characters and the chemistry between the actors.
Plot is only one facet of a film, there’s the dialogue, the acting, the setting, the lighting etc
Great mapping! However, some if the cards seem to have been mixed up? In “the meet” it says “10 things poem” in class and breaks down crying”, which obvisouly isn’t the meet-moment
I went to a top US film school, all the popular genres have formulas. I took a class that brokedown each genre’s paradigms and patterns–horror, sci fi, disaster, action (super hero), fantasy, etc. Remember when Scorcese said Marvel films are theme parks, not cinema? I drive my son crazy when we watch this genre because I predict every single thing that is going to happen. Once you see this, you can’t unsee it.
>- Sleepless in Seattle, the two leads don’t actually meet until insanely late in the film
Recently, I rewatched this movie because of a faint memory that it was good. The absurdity of the plot is shocking.
The Notebook is not a “romcom” it’s a romance movie.
Read the screenwriting book Save the Cat. It literally has the formula in it.