Hollywood is a place that chases trends. When a certain type of movie does well at the box office, we tend to see more of those types of movies in the following months and years. Likewise, if a certain type of movie struggles, we see fewer of them. The romantic comedy genre has been on the back burner for a long time, but recent evidence indicates that maybe we’re in for a rom-com renaissance and that would be wonderful.
Anne Hathaway’s new film, The Idea of You, which stars the actress as a single mom who falls in love with a boy band member, has debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with a perfect score. While it only has 10 reviews as of the time of writing, and that perfect score is unlikely to hold, the initial response to The Idea of You has been overwhelmingly positive.
The Idea of You’s critic success follows from the strong popular success of Anyone But You starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell. While it should be said that Anyone But You did not receive love from critics, audiences didn’t care and it became a solid box office hit. The Idea of You won’t have a box office to compare as it’s a film for Prime Video subscribers, so the critic support is the best metric for success we’ll likely have.
Neither of these films is necessarily one of the best romantic comedies of all time, but they don't need to be, that's the beauty of it. In the age of the franchise blockbuster, a lot of smaller, mid-budget projects have been overlooked and that includes essentially the entire rom-com genre. The movies have never entirely gone away, but we used to see a lot more of them. There used to be actors who were known specifically for appearing in them. We haven’t seen that in a long time. And rom-coms have almost always been great fun, it would be great to see them make a return.
Romantic comedies are simple movies. People like to watch people fall in love. The trials and tribulations of interpersonal relationships are something everybody can relate to, making them easy for a viewer to connect. They tend to fall into formulas, but those formulas are often part of the charm. When somebody sits down to watch a romantic comedy they know what they’re going to get, and it’s exactly what they want.
Rom-coms are simple films that usually don’t cost a great deal of money, considering there’s usually little need for post-production digital effects. The upshot of that is that what is necessary to reach “success” is also perfectly reasonable. Anyone But You made less than $100 million domestically and barely crossed the $200 million mark worldwide, but because the budget was a fraction of your average tentpole project, those numbers are actually massive.
With Anyone But You’s box office success and The Idea of You looking strong on streaming, studios will take notice. It will not be too much of a shock if we start to see more romantic comedies both in theaters and at home. We can only hope.
