Falling in Love at the Movies by Esther Zuckerman
Esther Zuckerman was only eight when her family took her to see You’ve Got Mail (1998) and her life has never been the same. She brings her love of romantic comedies—rom-coms in that irritating industry jargon—to her latest book, Falling in Love at the Movies.
Zuckerman has a good grasp of film history and writes with passion on the genre she loves most. Correctly identifying Shakespeare as romantic comedy’s fountainhead, she points out how his plot lines have continued to play out across rom-coms from the silent era through today. And yet the genre, like the society it reflects, has never been static.
She argues well for her case that rom-coms aren’t necessarily “comfort viewing.” Some have contained dark themes about human nature. Witness Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960), with Jack Lemon providing the comedy (and eventually the romance) in a story about a predatory boss (Fred McMurray) and his victim (Shirley MacLaine). Wilder also directed a more conventional rom-com, a modern-day fairytale with Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, Sabrina (1954).
Zuckerman explores all of rom-com’s subgenres with equal zest, including ‘30s screwball comedies (sparked by writers sneaking sex past the censors) to the meta-romances of Woody Allen and John Hughes’ ‘80s teen comedies. She pegs ideal rom-com heroines as “easy going and sometimes a little undervalued” with glamor that is apparent but never blinding. “When you’re watching her you feel like you know someone like her, or maybe you even are her.”
As for those who say that rom-coms are a dying genre in a world of superheroes and franchises of idiocy, Zuckerman insists: Don’t bet on it.
Falling in Love at the Movies: Rom-Coms from the Screwball Era to Today is published by Running Press/TCM).
Get Falling in Love at the Movies at Amazon here.
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