The Evolution of the Modern Rom-Com, with Scott Meslow
Rom-com-versations is an interview series with people from the entertainment industry discussing all things rom-coms.
Hi Meet Cuties,
This week I had the pleasure to chat with author and critic, Scott Meslow. Scott is a senior editor at The Week magazine and a writer and critic for publications including GQ, New York magazine, and The Atlantic. His book, From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy, was released in February 2022 where he interviewed rom-com legends, like Judy Greer, Nia Vardalos, Drew Barrymore, Hugh Grant and Judd Apatow, and dissected the modern era of rom-coms, dating back to WHEN HARRY MET SALLY all the way to the newer blockbuster hits like CRAZY RICH ASIANS. Heβs a personal fan of the genre but knows the extensive history of it from its heyday in the 80s and 90s, to what he calls a decline in the 2000s, and its resurgence we are seeing today. Scott is a long-standing fan of romantic comedies and Iβm thrilled to get a chance to speak with him.
π Naomi: What is your favorite rom-com and why?Β
π Scott: I know it's not the most surprising answer, but it's WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, especially when talking about modern rom-coms because my book doesn't get into the movies from the '20s. There's a much wider history of rom-coms I could have covered, but because I was talking to people who made those movies, I focused on the modern era. Even then, I obviously couldn't talk to some of the great influencers of the genre, like Nora Ephron. On my book tour, I hosted a screening of the movie in Boston and just beforehand I asked the audience, "By a show of hands, who's seen this movie? Who hasn't?" To my surprise, It was split right down the middle. There were people who clearly had seen it a hundred times, and there were people who'd never seen it. To sit in the theater and see this movie land so well with the audience was one of the most surreal experiences. Everyone who could recite it line for line still loved it, and people who'd never seen it but had obviously heard some of its references in popular culture I think were surprised by how well it stood up to the test of time. Experiencing that really solidified it for me. I love all my children equally, but kicking the book off with that movie just shows that's a really special one to me.Β
π Naomi: I have heard that answer before and I respect that answer every time I hear it. Obviously, you have an amazing book out called From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy. What inspired you to write this book?Β
π Scott: It was really interesting to think about what kind of book I would want to write. I've been in entertainment journalism for about a decade, so when the opportunity came along, I asked myself , "What do you want to spend two years of your life on?" It was really interesting to think about what of all the things that I've written about do I think there's a lot of depth in? Obviously, I love romantic comedies and I felt like there was this really interesting time period for romantic comedies that I hadn't seen covered the way that I would have wanted. I took a broader lens of the genre, which is why my book covers the 30 year snapshot from WHEN HARRY MET SALLY up to today. I made a list of around 80 movies, then distilled it down to 16 that I thought were interesting in themselves, but also represented something larger about what was happening in the genre, focusing on what was going on with rom-coms at that time, what it said about the way Hollywood had changed, the way that people were dating, talking, and thinking about falling in love, and what values were being reflected. On a more basic level, it was so fun to spend two years of watching rom-coms and talking to the brilliant people who made them. So many of these rom-coms were massively underappreciated at the time they were released that directors, screenwriters, and actors were so excited to talk when they realized I wanted to celebrate their work in a way that they hadn't always experienced. It opened a lot of doors in a really meaningful way. I also love horror movies and really grim dramas, but immersing myself into that for two years could have been really dark.
π Naomi: They really are underappreciated, especially when you think about all the award shows and big film events that people look forward to. Even though they're widely watched, rom-coms aren't as widely recognized. In your book you talk about the heyday of rom-coms in the '80s and '90s, their fall in the 2000s, and then the resurgence that we're seeing today. At each of those marks, is there a particular movie that you think demarcated the rise, the fall, and the rise again, either in general or for you personally?
π Scott: Because I was telling a story through the movies that were made, I had to answer, βWhat is representative of the trend at that time?β For me, all the Nora Ephron movies are certainly emblematic of both huge hits and also feel like that era of romantic comedies. Everyone was kind of following in those footsteps. Similarly, Nancy Meyers is the prototypical 2000βs rom-com. The vibe of SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE is that era of romantic comedies. I thought a lot about the last two chapters of the book which covers the recent era, and CRAZY RICH ASIAN felt like an obvious choice when thinking about a significant theatrical rom-com. It was so classically rom-com in structure and so groundbreaking in terms of diversity of the cast; it felt like a combination of the old and the new. But I really thought hard about which streaming rom-com to cover. I closed the book by covering the streaming era of rom-coms, which has blown up much more since the book was published last year. I was really happy with where I landed, which was TO ALL THE BOY I LOVED BEFORE and the two sequels. I thought it was made so artfully and so well directed and beautifully acted.Β
π Naomi: It looks like a Wes Anderson movie with all the saturated colors. Itβs so good!
π Scott: It's gorgeous. And the way it sort of tips the hat to John Hughes explicitly while also calling out the problems of John Hughes, to me, that really made it feel like it was in conversation with the genre in a way that was very cool. Coming back to the question, we were talking about the rise and fall and rise. The really hard part was figuring out which movie to cover for fall because I don't think it's fair to knock one individual rom-com for broader Hollywood trends. The title of my book is kind of a misnomer because I actually think of it more as the decline of the mid-budget studio movie. A movie I really like is HOW DO YOU KNOW, which I thought was sort of a controversial pick because it was not particularly well reviewed. If I had to pick a movie that denotes the fall, I think it could be that one because it was the most expensive rom-com and was a big flop. But that didn't feel right. I considered LARRY CROWNE, which is another movie I really like and had Nia Vardalos, Tom Hanks, and Julie Roberts, but it wasn't as big a hit as they're older rom-coms. Again, it felt wrong to identify that movie as the problem because it was still a good movie. What I finally settled on was highlighting a rom-com that wasn't produced, which was the Nancy Meyers rom-com written by Scott Neustadter that will now always be known as "Untitled Royal Wedding Romantic Comedy". If that movie got made, it would have been a huge hit especially considering it would have come out at a hot time right after the royal wedding of Kate and William. The fact that it didn't happen because of these broader Hollywood trends was the real fall of rom-coms. It's not the rom-coms that did get made, it's the ones that should have been made.
π Naomi: Now, I know youβve talked about specificity and how certain things in the plot or the script actually is what makes a viewer lean in and connect with the story. One example you gave in another interview was Yakult being featured in TO ALL THE BOYS. A lot of people who didn't know what that was might have discovered something new, and many who knew what it was leaned in because they had a strong connection to it. I'm curious what you think β does putting these specific cultural moments or products that people know more appealing to rom-com audiences, or do you think that viewers like when these specific things that teach them something new that they haven't experienced before?
π Scott: CRAZY RICH ASIANS is another example of this where you are exposed to mahjong, yet you know a sizable portion of the audience has no idea how to play it. But because it's so well directed, it's comprehensible even if you don't know the rules of the game. Audiences are not stupid. They know when something is being done authentically. I had a great conversation about MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING in this way. There was so much concern about the brief, specific details that Nia Vardalos knew were authentic because she lived it. What she found is that whether it was the one woman show or the movie, people would come up to her afterward and they'd be so excited to talk about their version of the same thing. Their grandpa might not have done the Windex thing, but he might have had something similar. There's something very real about it that everyone can relate to. You don't need to have a specific example of it to understand the broader dynamics. Families are weird, people do weird things, and you can really connect to that. Any attempt to water that stuff down inevitably makes a worse movie: audiences don't like it as much, you can feel the fuzziness, you can feel the market tested approach, and it's insulting. It is better to go specifically with the details you know and believe in, and the audience will meet you the rest of the way.
π Naomi: I keep hearing from studios and production companies that they are looking for something that feels big and cinematic, which I feel gets confused with "general" where you want to make sure that everyone relates to it and everyone gets it. For e.g.Β if the protagonist is Indian, leaning into Indian traditions that are specific pulls me in as a viewer. One thing I hear a lot from people who claim to not be rom-com people is that they seem contrived. Rom-coms naturally have a sort of magicalness to them, right? I mean the fact that there is something called a "meet cute" where people meet serendipitously points to that. What do you see as that line between magical and contrived?
π Scott: That's a good question. My first thought was that it's such a big tent. A romantic comedy can be the most contrived, cartoonish, supernatural, over the top, or it can be very grounded in realism. There's room for both. This story structure goes back to Shakespeare's time for a reason. There's something dramatically satisfying about two people-- sometimes enemies-to-lovers or a second-chance-romance, take your pick-- who beat the odds and fall in love. That is a dramatically satisfying arc that has endured for centuries. Audiences can know that going in and if it's well executed, it is not boring, but rather very pleasing. It is dramatically pleasing to have your expectations set up and then have them fulfilled. Tropes exist for a reason in genres: they work and they're time tested. I mentioned Palm Springs earlier, which to me is a great example of having it all and a time loop premise. So by definition, that's not realistic. But those characters are so tightly drawn and they feel like extremely real people. I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone, but there's a really dark secret in the female lead's past that is an extremely human and relatable thing. You can still do that all in one movie. FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS is another movie that I write about in the book. That's a movie that is very aware that rom-com tropes exist and is constantly commenting on it. I don't know if you need to lampshade it that hard, but it at least signals to the audience that you can be very self-aware and indulge in them at the same time. OBVIOUS CHILD is another movie that I think about a lot. There are all these things about modern dating that haven't really been accurately portrayed in the movies in my opinion, like the great Tinder rom-com, or the great non-binary rom-com. But this movie gets close because it feels like it is grounded in an extremely real situation and it never really takes the swing that goes into that heightened rom-com mode.
π Naomi: Your point about not having seen the modern dating app rom-com that is defining of this generation is right on. The expectation is that rom-coms are both modern and relatable, but also feel timeless.
π Scott: Maybe the answer is, "Who cares about the medium because it's all universal anyway." YOU'VE GOT MAIL is such a perfect example. Now, it feels ancient to us because we're not using AOL, but they themselves were just updating a story from decades earlier. It could be recreated today because that trope of mistaken identity is not exclusive to the time. It was done before and has been done since.Β
π Naomi: Okay, I have some rapid fire questions for you: What elements of rom-coms in the '80s and '90s don't exist in today's rom-coms?
π Scott: That's a deep question and I don't know if there is one. I can see versions of almost every rom-com I'm thinking of when I do it. I think everything has extended somehow.
π Naomi: What is one element you think will always be a part of the rom-com genre?Β
π Scott: Enemies-to-Lovers.
π Naomi: Who are today's rom-com icons? Like a Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts but for today's generation.
π Scott: It's crazy because all the actresses that I would've said a long time ago are backβ by "a long time ago" I mean 10 years. Look at Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, JLo, Reese Witherspoon; they're all back! I think it's kind of the same people. For me, I would put Lana Condor on that list now, too.
π Naomi: Why didn't Bros perform well?Β
π Scott: It was a streaming movie. I think it was mis-marketed, and they didn't convince people they needed to go to a theater, which unfortunately is a problem a lot of rom-coms are running into.Β
π Naomi: One more question for you: Are there any projects or things you're working on that you can give our audience a sneak peek into?
π Scott: I do film and TV criticism for GQ and New York Magazine so you can always read me there. I am not on Twitter much these days for some weird reason, but I tend to at least post articles I write. I hope to have news to report officially on a second book within the next few months. I am working on a second book idea, that much I can say.
I hope you enjoyed this rom-com-versation! Be sure to grab your copy of From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy!
xx,
Naomi