A Recipe For The Perfect Romcom

I love a bad romcom. It’s not even a guilty pleasure because I don’t feel guilty about it. I’m very open in my love for the genre and I even have a line about it in my Tinder profile.

It’s odd because I’m not that much of a romantic in real life. But I can get so into romcoms, in ways that I can’t in other movies. I’m a sucker for the bad plot, the cheesy lines, the forced romance. It doesn’t even remotely count as intellectually stimulating so it’s an easy watch after a long day. And they make me laugh, no matter how stupid they are.

I am sure many of my five readers are interested in making a romcom themselves. So here’s my recipe for the perfect romcom.

1. Needs to be set in England. I’m tangibly aware that other countries sometimes try romcoms as well but it’s a waste of effort. Only the Brits can do romcom.
2. The good-looking but down on his luck funny guy. Recognisable.
3. A smart, strong woman who’ll sweep our guy of his feet. I know we sometimes associate romcoms with weak female characters but this isn’t the 90’s anymore. We deserve strong female leads. Recognisable.
4. Funny parents that mess up one of the leads’ lives
5. Some kind of prop for the plot. Tennis for Wimbledon, time travel for About Time, whatever the plot clusterfuck was in Love Actually.
6. A lovable idiot friend/sibling
7. Something visually delicious like the house in About Time, the Porsche in Wimbledon, the French countryside in The Hundred Foot Journey
8. Don’t make the leads fall in love immediately. They need to fight for each other.

Don’t worry about plot inconsistencies or the amount of cheesiness. More cheese is good.

That’s it! Now start calling Colin Firth and get your movie made.