3 Best Releases From the Genre Romcom

The pleasures of the romantic comedy are well-documented. When they work, they make for the best kind of fantasy. The ones where our all too numerous flaws may stall but never derail us. Of course, their failures are similarly well documented, making the ups and downs of lust and love feel like products. Moving the genre from its typical medium—film—to television with the new series Nobody Wants This carries the threat to magnify those shortcomings until they blot out anything else. And then there’s that title. Oof. If ever there was a juicy fastball down the middle for critics looking for an easy headline dunk, it’s that one. It’s more than a relief then to find that blowing out rom-com tropes from an under two-hour film to a 10-episode season helps, not harms, the storytelling. Nobody Wants This isn’t doing anything revolutionary, but it plays the hits well. It makes a thing you’ve seen a hundred permutations of feel fresh and lively. Sorry, lovers of ironically mean-spirited headlines. The story is a tale of mismatched lovers. Joanne (Kristen Bell) cohosts a podcast with her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe) dedicated to their love life’s successes and failures—mostly failures. Her producer Ashley (Sherry Cola) has her over for a small gathering, warning Joanne there’s a rabbi in the house. Joanne jokes with another guest, Noah (Adam Brody), about it, their chemistry immediate. When Noah blesses dinner, Joanne realizes her error. Continue Reading →

As the director, co-writer (alongside American Vandal’s Dan Lagana), executive producer, and composer of Música, Rudy Mancuso’s filmmaking debut suggests he’s carrying a certain “do it all yourself” energy over from his previous career as a prolific YouTuber. Impressively, it does not feel insular or self-involved despite his hands being in nearly all aspects of the process. That isn’t to say, however, that it all works. Mancuso plays, well, Rudy, a college student barreling towards graduation with little semblance of a plan for what comes next. His dedication to puppetry and music shows great creativity, but it doesn’t seem like a promising moneymaking venture if his occasional busking is any indication. Further complicating matter is his synesthesia, a condition that underlines every aspect of his day with a constant beat. It may be great for his musicality, but it also creates a distance between him and others. Often distracted, sometimes overwhelmed, by the music only he can hear, he frequently misses out on what others are trying to tell him. Rudy Mancuso explains the "What's up Brother" meme to Camila Mendes. (Prime Video) His perceived lack of ambition proves too much for his girlfriend Haley (Francesca Reale), leading to a break-up at the film’s start. This clears the decks for Rudy’s mom (Maria Mancuso, the filmmaker’s real-life mom) to start playing matchmaker with every Brazilian-American girl around his age she can find and for Rudy to fall for Isabella (Camila Mendes), an employee at a local seafood counter. When Haley returns, things fall apart quickly, thanks in no small part to advice from Anwar (J.B. Smoove), a food truck entrepreneur and seemingly Rudy’s only friend. Continue Reading →

Of all the romcom tropes, “the amicable breakup” might be the most misunderstood, yet cathartic. When you break down the tropes of the romantic comedy, a handful immediately come to mind: friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, the sassy best friend, the makeover sequence. But one of the least discussed (and most misunderstood) rom-com tropes is “the amicable breakup.” Normally, there comes a moment when the film needs its heroine to leave her current partner to run off with Prince Charming. If the partner is a jerk (a la Glenn in The Wedding Singer), there’s no issue—the only thing to do when a leading lady dumps a jerk is to applaud. But if he’s not a jerk, the amicable breakup can be easily written off as a measure of expediency. He’s there to provide an obstacle to the romance, and the breakup needs to happen to make room for the romantic fantasy. But this view of the trope misses that the amicable breakup is an intrinsic part of the romantic fantasy itself. To see it plainly, look no further than the films of the romantic comedy's grande dame, Nora Ephron. In Sleepless in Seattle, we have one of the clearest and most memorable amicable breakups of all time, but also one that is often severely misinterpreted. Annie (Meg Ryan) is head over heels for Sam (Tom Hanks), or perhaps more accurately, his voice on the radio when she hears him on a late-night call-in show. She’s on a mission to meet him, obsessed less with the man himself than with the idea of what could be. So when she realizes that she must end things with sweet, slightly dopey fiancé Walter (Bill Pullman), the audience is prepared for heartbreak only to discover that Walter… gets it. Looking out at the Empire State Building, where Annie has asked Sam to meet her, Walter says gently, “So he could be up there right now,” expressing a level of optimism even Annie can’t bring herself to utter aloud. Continue Reading →