Giving Richard Gere more acting opportunities than he can successfully model, pout, and brood through, Runaway Bride is yet another romcom where heterosexual people argue a lot and we’re supposed to believe they fall in love in the middle of that. Some marketing genius brought Richard Gere and Julia Roberts together again hoping to remake their legendary freshman outing. It kinda works.

But wait. Back up. Perhaps we can believe people fall in love while arguing (I also watched You’ve Got Mail in the same day and OH BOY are opinions incoming). But “belief” is something that Runaway Bride does not earn from me. It’s not even trying.

The whole plot is inoffensively flimsy. A dude writes a hate-article about a woman he’s never met, and her letter to the editor in response gets him fired. This is what locks them into this enemies-to-lovers relationship; he vengefully seeks her out to prove he was right. When I type it out like that, it sounds a lot more believable to me than the actual execution of the movie, where it’s hard to believe Gere has so little power (even with his ex-wife in charge) that he’s got zero job security, that a single woman complaining would make him lose his entire job, and that somehow he has to prove she really does suck in order to redeem himself.

The execution of throwing these two together really feels like “let’s get Gere and Roberts back in the same room, STAT,” and I half blame the script, half blame Gere for not attempting to rise to meet the material. *He* sure knows that his inclusion in this movie is a marketing thing, and that he doesn’t have to act *well* to secure his job. Gere is not actually in any risk. I don’t believe his character’s heart is at risk either, which makes me shrug at most everything they go through.

Things start turning from harassment to ~love~ when he’s the only person who doesn’t mock her at a wedding rehearsal. Previously he was actually kinda stalking her and I was wondering where this Cozy Small Town’s obligatory police force is because I think there’s a cuddly fatherly cop trope that could have removed Gere at any moment. Anyway, five seconds of respect from the one male human being in Roberts’s vicinity makes her fall in love with Gere.

Then Roberts makes out with Gere in front of her husband-to-be, hardcore, and she’s like, “Actually, I’m not going to marry my fourth fiance. I’m going to marry the man who came to town to harass me!”

Did I mention that Julia Roberts’s character flaw is being an extremely ADHD woman who stims in front of fans to try to emotionally regulate before a wedding, has poor social boundaries around men that make them think she’s flirting, and is generally the neurodivergence-coded manic pixie dream girl who actually probably needs adderall and therapy instead of another sudden marriage to a donghole? Elopement is literally a symptom.

So this turns into another movie where I’m kinda worried about the safety of the Quirky Heroine.

The thing with Runaway Bride is that I can see this movie tapdancing on *someone’s* buttons so much that they love it despite everything I said above. Because if you don’t care about the plot, watching them bicker playfully is cute. The hijinks are slapstick. Of course it ends up with them trying to get married; how else are we going to have Gere chasing Roberts in a wedding dress onto a Fedex truck? Roberts is *gorgeous* and I have done everyone a favor by not typing out the number of disgusting thoughts I have about my wife. Things are really cute, light, and funny in tone. There are wedding dresses! Multiple!

But this one manages to artfully dodge every single one of my buttons (I do love enemies-to-lovers at other times) so I personally found it didn’t work for me *at all*. When it ended, I turned to my sibling and said, “That was inoffensively flimsy. They just tacked stuff together to make those two interact.” And so those are the two words I leave with you: inoffensively flimsy.

Image credit: Touchstone Pictures

Now this is a movie that feels like the Christmas season. Better still, The Holiday knows the value of a chemistry test, and a four-lead ensemble with sorta surprising casting turns out to work marvelously.

I say surprising because the four, collectively, feel disparate to me at a first glance. Jude Law is someone I associate with pained twinks, sure, but pairing him up with the mob girlfriend from The Mask / one of Charlie’s Angels? Yet their romance is my favorite part. Likewise, Kate Winslet understands an *incredibly* charming Jack Black is going to make a woman in love giggle helplessly, buoyed on the joy he brings to her, and his fist pump when they kiss is representative of how we would all react to kissing Kate Winslet. But I wouldn’t have ever thought of the two together.

The latter relationship feels the less intimate of them; Winslet’s character is on a different journey, which splits her time between that guy from Gladiator and her new 90yo best friend. The balance works great. Winslet’s performance is so relatable to me, she almost vanishes, and I know that I’d be smooching on Jack Black by the end of the movie. He’s so cute. And he communicates pretty well.

Usually I don’t connect with Cameron Diaz’s performances, and this is no different. She’s adorable to watch, though. And Law manages to meet Diaz on exactly her level. He brings warmth that makes her amelodically bright delivery feel *right.* This is a miracle performed by the casting director: Law and Diaz sparkle together.

Everyone does a great job bringing energy to dialogue that meanders, and whatever complaints I started to collect in the first couple acts were forgotten by the gorgeous ending that lets us imagine our own happy ending. Will these couples be together forever? Nobody establishes that. But they’re all together on New Year’s Eve, which we linger upon through a window, seeing them like we just got the back story on why our neighbors are smiling so much. It’s realistic enough that their joy is visceral.

Predictably, I did let out a supersonic/lesbionic scream when Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz made physical contact and didn’t immediately elope.

image credit: Sony Pictures

I love a movie that knows its goals and meets them with skillful intention. The Knight Before Christmas is part of the Vanessa Hudgens Cinematic Christmas Universe. There’s only one version of this Vanessa Hudgens, and she falls head-over-heels for an adorable twinky knight-out-of-time when she hits him with her car. (He’s okay! Thanks to the knight armor!) Through a series of low-stakes events with no interest in dull nonsense like historicity, the knight gets to remain in modern day and serve Vanessa Hudgens forever or something.

I say “modern day” here loosely because this is the kind of small town which exists exclusively in snowglobes and Hallmark movies. A single dad working two jobs is still experiencing little greater hardship than a daughter without mittens. Everyone is very attractive with perfect dental care. The Christmas lights are perfectly arranged. The knits are coordinated. Etcetera.

The only thing really blowing the fantasy is the fact the cops manage to recruit Sir Cole, thus All Sir Coles Are Bastards. Apparently we *need* policing in this little community and it’s a uniformly positive influence. All right. I’ll believe the fantasy that all these people have fabulous teeth (in both time periods) and massive houses in this little small town, but that’s kinda pushing it.

I never get tired of the Netflix holiday movies appearing in one another’s movies.

I love that the old crone is maybe 55. She looks happy to be in the movie.

Image Source: Netflix

It’s fun to reflect on how many romcoms tackled issues we’ve recently begun to frame in different ways, like gender. I recently watched Kate & Leopold to find Kate had abandoned something “soft and feminine” about herself to become shielded in masculinity, which doesn’t actually do anything to protect her; Gracie Hart is dealing with a very similar dilemma, with a different outcome.

Either of these women might identify as nonbinary born a generation or two down. What once felt like stories about tomboys confronting what that means in their lives can currently be framed as conflicts with the very gender binaries that the movies otherwise fully reinforce.

In this case, Gracie Hart has become overtly hostile to her gender. She’s as quick to express sexist sentiments as the men in her FBI office, who gather around computers to howl over photo manipulations of coworkers in swimwear, eagerly watch surveillance footage for boobs, and make it clear that Actual Women are mostly meat.

No wonder Gracie doesn’t want to identify with women. Her career in law enforcement is contingent on getting along with these guys. But she found that men were always intimidated by her strong (arguably masculine) and aggressive personality, even as a kid; these butch elements are inherent to Gracie.

Hence she enters her Sexy Transformation Phase with full hostility, disgusted to be thrown into a world where she’s expected to eat nothing fun for vanity. She doesn’t love having her hamclam waxed. She mostly likes using her hotness to taunt the man who is weak enough to be attracted to her, which is so relatable. (Benjamin Bratt in the year 2000, please call me. Sooo cute.)

Forcible enfranchisement in feminine beauty rituals gives Gracie an “in” with other women at the pageant. As much as Gracie has come to hate her gender, her gender embraces her lovingly, joyfully, and brings her into the fold.

Before long, Gracie’s no longer faking it around her new cross-country friends from the pageant. It’s nice to see Gracie having fun with people who don’t toss insults about her looks every two seconds. And when her fellow women realize she’s clueless with makeup, they make sure Gracie is competition-ready, despite being competitors. That’s sisterhood, baby.

Gracie learns the gift of feminine strength. Meanwhile, a fabulous Candace Bergen acts as her villainous foil. Bergen’s character has been running the beauty pageant for her entire career, and now she’s going to get fired. She hates *everything*. But she decides to take it out on the women, planning to literally tear the crown from the winner’s head via incendiary device.

It’s a nice classic romantic suspense story that I would (as always) prefer ended with Absolute Lesbianism. There are a few good laughs, a lot of really good actors (a couple moments of “hey! that guy!”). Of course, All Gracie Lou Freebushes are Bastards, but we can’t fix every character flaw in a single movie.

Image credit: Castle Rock Pictures

I think we’ve all agreed at this point that Love Actually isn’t a good movie, but hopefully we can agree it’s kind of a great movie. If I were to edit it to suit specifically my preferences, these are the parts of each story I would chuck or keep:

Hans Gruber Cheats on His Wife
This whole story goes in the bin.

The Writer & The Housekeeper
The cheating ex-wife goes in the bin. After that, everything except the mean jokes about the woman’s sister can stay.

Liam Neeson & His (Step-)Kid
In the bin.

Rodrigo Santoro & The Adorable Office Lady
Everything stays up until the moment she picks up the phone the second time. We assume that her brother has sufficient care at his home, and that she has healthy boundaries, and that she nails Rodrigo Santoro. good for you, adorable office lady.

Teenage Kiera Knightley and Her Stalker
Everything the bin, except perhaps one quick shot of the breasts covered in tiny santa hats, as well as the “to me, you are perfect” sign, cropped to exclude the holder, and moved directly after the Prime Minister’s dance scene.

The Prime Minister & His Assistant
The Prime Minister’s dance scene – with zero other context included. Everything else in the bin.

The Actor Stand-Ins, Colin Frizzle, and Billy
Every second: no cuts, no comments.

Image credit: Universal Pictures

A hot couple with great chemistry can take you great distances in romcom. Add a sympathetic take on sex work, tastefully spicy intimacy, and gorgeous costumes, and you’ve got my favorite romcom from when I was growing up. Pretty Woman formed all my preferences in romance.

This movie is ripe for a class- and capitalism-first analysis that I can’t do because it feels too personal, but I love that this is yet another entry into movies about “success in capitalism is hollow and i must turn from its excesses to find myself.”

The older brooding guy and *gorgeous* leggy redhead were surely my first non-Disney bisexual crush.

Despite a socioeconomic chasm and almost two decades between them, Edward and Vivian are one of the most equal-feeling couples of my recent romcom watches. Linus baffled Sabrina with manipulations, Higgins had zero interest in Eliza’s agency, but Edward and Vivian always communicate to get on the same page.

These two have a more positive relationship than most employers and employees, but Pretty Woman also touches on the less-glossy aspects of sex work, like physical abuse, drug addiction, exploitation by pimps, and more – primarily through dialogue. They could have chosen to keep it shallower yet in support of the fairytale Vivian wants, but I think it’s a tasteful balance of reality versus romantic fantasy.

The original screenplay was far severer, and didn’t end with a happily ever after. I love breaking tropes. But we truly do not have enough gorgeous, vulnerable endings as we see in this movie, where our lovers (parted as friends) reunite at the cost of Edward braving his fear of heights. A little bit.

I’m genuinely happy to see these people come back together and ride off into the Sunset Boulevard. This movie is exactly as warm as it needs to be.

Image credit: Touchstone Pictures