Romance

Romance films are often developed from one basic narrative; they aim to provoke emotions such as empathy, longing and eventual joy. Romance films are conventionally aimed at females of a wide age-group, and have generally been around since the invention of film. Romance, as a genre, is so successful that many modern films of different genres now involve romantic interests, to expand the target audience and the storyline dimensions.

The conventional narrative of Hollywood romance movies especially, involves a handsome man and a pretty young woman, both of an intelligent nature. More often than not, the two characters seem to ‘save’ each other in some way, perhaps from a dreary lifestyle (for example, in ‘Just like Heaven’) or a life of misery after a family member dies (the storyline for the new film, ‘Love Happens.’) Hollywood, as a major film company, has always been wary of the risk surrounding gay romance films. The 1985 film ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ was very controversial for its time, especially as the two men were inter-race as well as homosexual. More recently, Hollywood has released ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ also controversial, though less so because it is more recent. ‘Little Ashes,’ another homosexual romance movie based on, is an independent film that has been released recently, based on the story of Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca. Despite these films existing, 99% of major romance films, both from Hollywood and independent film-makers, involve the conventional boy and girl couple: This is because of the homophobia of Hollywood, and the mass market of heterosexuals as apposed to homosexuals. It is also much safer to create a conventional romance movie, in terms of the film-maker’s gross profit.

The majority of romance film narratives have happy endings, in which the two characters end up together, either as boyfriend and girlfriend, engaged or married. These types of romance films almost always end at a perfect point in the relationship – the audience never sees past the point that the couple join, and the audience are therefore lead to believe that the rest of their lives will be spent together, in joyful matrimony. Usually, within the story, problems occur to threaten the perfection of the relationship, in order to make the story more entertaining and somewhat more realistic to modern relationships. For example, in ‘Notting Hill,’ the press finds out about their relationship and intervene in the perfection, and in ‘A Brief Encounter,’ the two characters were both married, creating jeopardy within their connection. The majority of romance films aim to be feel-good, and therefore have a happy ending, but there are occasionally films that do not necessarily on a high note. The level of happiness is unsure in ‘A Brief Encounter,’ (1949) as the ending shows the love affair come to an abrupt stop, as the two main characters decide it would be too risky to push their families aside in order to be together. In ‘PS, I Love You’ (2004) the audience feels an odd mixture of emotions by the end of the film, as the main character’s loss, that caused her great misery, has infact encouraged her through the difficult stage in her life. There are a fair few romance films that have a very upsetting ending, for example, ‘City of Angels’ (1998) in which the male character dies at the end, and also ‘Love Story’ (1970) in which the female character dies. These films prove that not all romance films have the feel-good aspect. However, these endings are seen as more ‘risky’ to the mass audience, who enjoy the positive feel of romantic endings.

The iconography in romance films vary depending on how conventional the film is. In a very traditional, happy, entirely love-based story, then the film may well include objects such as engagement rings, flowers, candles and wine glasses. As well as romance, these objects connote sophistication, meaning that these icons may not be included in lower brow romantic comedies. In traditional romantic scenes, nature comes across quite strongly to link the beauty of the landscape with the beauty of the moment. Flowers are often given as gifts, and romantic scenes often feature sunsets, or a bright moon. Engagement rings and wedding bells are symbolic entirely on the romance genre, and these often prop up in conventional romance movies.

Another very traditional and ‘Hollywoodised’ element of romance films is that 99% of the time, the main characters who inevitably fall in love are very attractive. In the 2001 romantic comedy ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary,’ the main character, Bridget, is not supposed to be stick-thin and model-esque. However, the fact that the film is a romantic comedy backs up exactly why the bumbling character of Bridget is somewhat a mockery, and this, in a typical ‘Hollywood’ manner, explains why she is not perfect-looking (The conventions are that you can only be perfect, if you happen to look perfect.) The other conventional characters in romance films, other than the couple themselves, consist of: The girl’s best friend, and less likely, a good friend of the man. For example, the gay best friend character in ‘My Best Friend’s wedding’ (1997) is an important part in the film. As well as the best friend, there is occasionally a man, or woman competing for the desirable character: This is evident in the film ’27 Dresses,’ and again ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary.’ The ‘competing’ character is often the problem that causes controversy during the story.

The settings of romance movies are hardly ever anywhere unusual. The vast majority of romance films are set in either suburbia, or exciting city centres, such as New York. These ‘ordinary’ settings for films make the love story more realistic, giving the impression that it could happen to any member of the audience, living an ordinary lifestyle in an ordinary setting. However, the extremely romantic moments in the films adopt a more ‘perfect’ setting. The two characters may, for example be situated in a pretty place abroad for their romantic moment, like in ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ (2008) or in an attractive park, like in ‘You’ve got mail.’ (1998)

The most common spin-off of romance movies are romantic-comedies. ‘Rom-coms’ are very popular, and almost always feel-good, meaning they generally have happy endings; they are very popular with film-makers, because they are safe in the amount of money they will make from the genre. Rom-coms can be marketed for their genre and still be successful, often regardless of the stars in the film, and for this reason, romantic comedies can be cheap to make. Romance as an element has begun propping up in many irrelevant genres, such as horror (for example, ‘28 Days Later’)  Romance has become so common in films that they are now used as side-stories to films of different genres, and this widens the target audience of films and also increases the dimensions in stories to make films more interesting.

Romance has been a huge part of films since the 1930s-40s, and is still successful in the modern day, despite the public being generally more interested in romantic-comedy popcorn movies, than the more ‘classy’ tragic tales of love and loss. The success of romance has caused it to create hybrids, and to feature in many films of different genres as well.