It’s Valentine’s Day, but I’m in no mood to celebrate. Why? Because love is dead. Or, more specifically, one of the greatest loves of my life: the rom-com. We haven’t had a good one for years, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon. What do I have to do, go to Richard Curtis’s house with this column written on cue cards, playing Silent Night on a portable CD player? I’m willing to do it.
I know, I know, there have been some great small-screen rom-coms of late. Rose Matafeo’s wonderful Starstruck wears its love of the genre on its sleeve, and Catastrophe brilliantly dared to look at what happens after the — in this case, very haphazard — meet-cute. But what I’m talking about are the old-fashioned big-screen rom-coms, where incredibly beautiful people without real jobs fall in love, usually while it’s raining or they are standing in a bookshop that sells only travel books.
