one identity crisis at a time, baby

It’s the way they look. That’s the something. And it’s not a compliment the way it is about Mary (bah-dum-tss).

Lack of compliments and all, I’m not coming at this from a place of hate in my heart or anything. Set It Up, Palm Springs, I Want You Back, Always Be My Maybe… Look, I’ve had a blast with them all. Nothing is without criticism, obviously and of course, but I like a romantic comedy for what it is.

But lately? They look weird.

Which is arguably not that big of a deal, or not as big a deal as more pressing issues with regards to romance. Like how we’re meant to root for the Nice Guy to get the girl just because it’s what he wants, never mind what she has to say about it—I’m looking at you, Tom from (500) Days of Summer and the screenwriter who needs to get over it already, but if that’s not a post all its own… Let me jump off this train of thought before I get carried away on it.

So, not as big a deal, but its own kind of deal. The aesthetic is off, ladies, and that affects the emotional punch. From where I’m standing, anyway, and I have nothing else to do today, so let’s get into it:

Everything looks like it was filmed with a ring light and an Instagram filter. It’s too polished perfect sanitized. The sets look like model homes, or at least meticulously staged ones. And I don’t even know what’s going on half the time because I’ve been hypnotized by everybody’s goddamn veneers for the entire hour and forty-odd minutes. (Truly, everyone’s teeth are too big and there’s too many of them, I can’t stop thinking about this.)

There’s no real clutter or personality. Compare Mandy Moore’s apartment in Because I Said So to Glen Powell’s in Anyone But You. I was @ Sydney Sweeney like, “Girly pop, I know that’s Glen Powell but look around you, this man is a serial killer and this is one of many nondescript Airbnbs he rents in which to commit nefarious acts.”

…Incidentally, that’s another movie I’d watch. But! Back to the point:

We’ve lost, in a word (two words, strictly speaking) the warmth.

Gone are the soft hues of When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless In Seattle, The Wedding Planner, replaced by what only reminds me of those daylight bulbs that subsequently remind me of empty hospital rooms in psychological horror sequences—stark and too bright, too sharp, stripping away any sense of comfort in favor of glossy magazine stills.

(Upon an editorial reread, I realized I likened psychological horror sequences to glossy magazine stills, but maybe that’s just the spectrum upon which modern romcom staging vacillates.)

I’m no cinematographer producer director whoever’s making these decisions, and maybe there’s something to be said here about the way technical aspects of filming have evolved, I don’t know—but this post isn’t about what I know, it’s about me complaining about things I think are weird (derogatory).

It’s all too Instagram-ready, I think is the most efficient way for me to pinpoint it. Sure, I may spend the entirety of Bridget Jones’s Diary begging Renée Zellweger to run a brush through her hair, but she looks like a real person in real life. I don’t think we ever caught Tom Hanks shirtless (?), but his appeal never hinged on his abs situation. The Wedding Singer hits every right note in its portrayal of regular people working regular and kinda lousy/totally unglamorous jobs. Sandra Bullock’s While You Were Sleeping wardrobe is enviable, not for the fit or the designer label, but for the comfy-coziness—but we lost those cozy sweaters along with the cozy feel romcoms used to have.

Now it’s all tweaked and tweezed, airbrushed and perfectly fitted and perfectly coiffed, set against a backdrop of minimalist living rooms and restaurants and cityscapes that just aren’t bustling anymore (*Bonnie Tyler voice* 🎶 where have all the extras gone?), and all of which could be just as easily repurposed for the next thing. Maybe that’s in the name of eco-friendliness or some other buzzword term, but I’m not holding my breath.

The aforementioned emotional punch? She’s not hitting the same anymore. I’m not connecting with romcoms the way I used to. I thought, at first, that was just a byproduct of Why Are Straight People Like This?, but not quite, because I can still watch The Wedding Date—and with that, I’ve hit the trifecta of wedding romcom mentions—with the same appreciation I had when I first saw it.

So, yeah, I gotta blame it on the lighting.

There’s something alienating about it, off-putting in a way I could probably describe better if I knew anything about filmmaking. Which, again, I don’t; I’m just going on vibes here and they’re not vibing. I feel like I’m watching especially long ads for probiotic yogurts or luxury salon shampoos or hot people vacations, not immersing myself in how people fall in love and how that kind of Hollywood fairytale is, in fact, attainable in real life.

And, no, that has nothing to do with the plot. To rewind to the top of the post, the premise of Anyone But You is debatably more “realistic” than While You Were Sleeping (two people meet in a coffeeshop and have a misunderstanding versus a woman saves a man from an oncoming train and is mistaken for his fiancée while he’s comatose—sure, hijinks ensue through both movies, but as far as starting points go… Anyway)—

—but it’s not about the premise, it’s about the feeling. And when the world around you looks so starched and spotless and Pinterest-perfect, it looks like a fantasy; that comfortable sense of reality, the familiarity and relatability that comes with messy apartments smudged lipstick unflattering lighting and other Regular Things is gone, and you just don’t have that feeling like this could happen anymore.

Instead, I feel less like I’m watching people fall in love, and more like I’m watching a curated advertisement for some trendy product I don’t actually care about.

It’s not enough to have big names and sex appeal and those goddamn veneers—you need to set the stage for something your audience can believe in. Maybe this is an incredibly niche and perhaps even Real Dumb critique, but this is my incredibly niche and perhaps even Real Dumb blog, so… I just can’t believe in anything if I have to peel back all its Instagram filters first.

Show me a little bit of mess again, because I’ve always been able to believe in that.