8.21.2015

My top 5 rom-coms

I love a good rom-com, we all love a good rom-com.

For those who are feeling a little bit lost right now, rom-com stands for a Romantic Comedy. It's the perfect genre to watch a Friday night when you want to watch a film that'll make you go ''aww'' and laugh in a few occasions - don't expect mind blowing plot twists. The rom-com has always been present at my house, my parents are big fans of Woody Allen's style of rom-coms (like myself), they also really enjoy the french ones, so I'd say my taste is somewhere in the middle.

So, what makes a rom-com good?
1. Let's be real, it's going to be a little cheesy, I mean IT'S A ROM-COM. But only the good ones can balance it and make it not that cheesy. The ones that can't do it really make me cringe.
2. Great personalities on the characters. I really enjoy when the characters not only the main ones, are different than what we are used to and think in a special way.
3. When they are not as predictable. It's a comedy so it can't finish badly, but I really enjoy when the film it's not only: Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they have problems but manage to end up together.
4. Good all-in-all plot. It has to make sense, feel relatable but fresh at the same time, there are a lot of these kinds of films that are practically the same.
5. The most important thing is that it needs to make you laugh, at least giggle.

My list (the ones which are in the same category is because I love them equally)
1. Annie Hall
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Woody Allen and Diane Keaton
Plot summary: The romantic adventures of a neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer and his girlfriend Annie Hall. The film traces the course of their relationship from their first meeting, as he tries to figure out what caused them to part ways.


1.1. Manhattan
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Meryl Streep and Mariel Hemingway.
Plot summary: In Manhattan, Isac Davis is a divorced writer of TV shows who is unhappy with his job. His ex-wife left him for another woman and she's writing a book about their relationship. 


2. Lost in Translation
Director: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson
Plot summary: Bob Harris is an American film actor, who visits Tokyo to appear in commercials, and he meets Charlotte, a just graduated Yale student and the young wife of a visiting photographer. Charlotte is looking for "her place in life," and Bob is going through a midlife crisis. 


3. When Harry met Sally
Director: Rob Reiner
Starring: Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal
Plot summary: Harry and Sally meet when she gives him a ride to New York after they both graduate from the University of Chicago. The film jumps through their lives while they are both searching for love but fail, bumping into each other time and time again. Finally they become really good friends but, "Can a man and a woman be friends, without sex getting in the way?"


4. Love actually
Director: Richard Kurtis
Starring: Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson and Bill Nighy.
Plot summary: This film follows the lives of eight very different couples idealing with their love lives in various interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.


5. Before Sunrise
Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke
Plot summary: Before Sunrise is a romance between a young American (Jesse) and a French student (Celine). They meet in a train and Jesse suggests that Celine postpones her return to France and embarks instead on a spontaneous expedition to Vienna.


5.1. Before Sunset
Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke
Plot summary: Nine years after Jesse and Celine first met, they encounter each other again during Jesse's book tour in France.


5.2. Before Midnight
Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke
Plot summary: Nine years later, Jesse and Celine, the French-American couple who once met on a train in Vienna, now live in Paris with twin daughters, but have spent a summer in Greece on the invitation of an author colleague of Jesse's. 


What is your favourite rom-com? I would love to know.