Fall In Love With These Rom-Coms Over Memorial Day Weekend
Plus, a Jim-Pam rift in The Office Episode of the Week
To be honest, we’re probably overdue for a Romantic Comedy Week. There are so many rom-coms available on streaming platforms that we found a pretty good variety for you. There’s a couple recent ones, but also a classic from 1967. There’s a teen rom-com, as well as adult rom-coms. Plus, we got some help from someone that knows these movies a little better than we do. Settle in this holiday weekend and open your heart to one of these.
And don’t forget… we’re just a movie newsletter standing in front of a subscriber asking you to read this.
Drew recommends…
About Time (streaming on Netflix)
About Time really shouldn’t work. It’s a sentimental rom-com with a sci-fi twist, which sounds laughable, I know. And yet, this movie is a kind of magic trick. It turns on the simple premise that the main character, Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson), can secretly travel back in time to moments he has already lived. Tim decides he will use this power to find love.
Richard Curtis, About Time’s writer-director, is responsible for many of the famous British rom-coms of the last 25 years, including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Love Actually. If you like those movies, it’s a good bet you’ll like About Time, but even if they are not your cup of tea (my not-so-hot take is that Love Actually is wildly overrated), you may still like this one. There’s an intimate charm at play in About Time; its story is small even though there’s time travel involved. It helps that the film is beautifully shot, with much of it taking place in tiny English seaside towns (this movie made me want to hit pause and book a flight immediately).
However, most of the charm comes from Gleeson and Rachel McAdams, who make for a surprisingly wonderful pair. Gleeson is endearingly awkward and goofy, while McAdams utilizes her considerable acting skills to make her character Mary come off as smart, quirky, and relatable. You root for these two kids.
Now, of course, the plot stretches logic at times. Gleeson isn’t the kind of guy that would be able to get interest from both Rachel McAdams and Margot Robbie, but you just go with it. Also, the internal time travel logic doesn’t make a ton of sense; it’s more of a low key plot element than a sci-fi spectacle. Instead, what we get is a sweet, warm, and lovely movie about appreciating every second we have with our loved ones.
And now, my wife Emily with a couple rom-com recommendations of her own...
Emily recommends…
A Cinderella Story (streaming on Netflix)
One rainy Sunday afternoon I was aimlessly channel surfing and stumbled across one of my top 15 favorite movie scenes. A soaking wet Josh Lucas is digging for glass on the beach during a thunderstorm (as one does) when Reese Witherspoon, having just ditched her fiancé at the altar, runs toward him and they passionately kiss. As I’m sure we all know, it’s as amazing as it sounds. As I was getting misty-eyed watching true love finally reunite, Drew walked into the room, looked bewildered, and had the AUDACITY to turn and ask me, “What movie is this?” It was in that moment that I decided, unequivocally, that if Do You Like Apples ever did a focus on romantic movies, I had to have a say. After all, how in good faith can I let a man who has never seen Sweet Home Alabama recommend romantic comedies to you fine people.
Ok, now, let’s talk about A Cinderella Story. With a plot loosely based off the classic fairy tale Cinderella (shocking, I know), and an early 2000s all-star cast of Chad Michael Murray, Hilary Duff, and Regina King, A Cinderella Story checks all the necessary boxes. Duff stars as Sam Montgomery, a high school girl who tragically loses her father in an earthquake and as a result is forced to live with her evil stepmother and ditzy step sisters. Sam finds companionship in her anonymous online friend “Nomad”, who requests to meet in person at the school dance. Sam undergoes a remarkable glow-up, shows up to the dance looking like a dime, and discovers to her dismay/delight that her online pal is Austin Ames (Murray), the devastatingly popular and outwardly cocky jock who has to be secret about his sensitive side because MEN CAN’T LIKE POETRY, ONLY SPORTS. However, despite an intimate slow dance under a moon-lit gazebo, Austin fails to realize that his secret online love interest is really the unpopular waitress (she is wearing a masquerade mask that covers 1/8th of her face after all) and goes on a quest to discover the identity of his mystery princess. A series of delightful and entirely realistic shenanigans ensues.
Is this a legitimately good movie? Debatable. Will you find a movie scene that triggers those deeply repressed high school emotions more than when Chad Michael Murray stops a championship football game to go kiss Hilary Duff in the pouring rain as a Jimmy Eat World song blares? Unlikely.
Definitely, Maybe (streaming on Netflix)
Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) is a 30-something dad in the midst of a divorce living in 1992 Manhattan. He arrives to pick up his 10-year-old daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) from school and learns to his dismay that it was sex education day at her school. This leads Maya to ask *ahem* a lot of questions. After quite a bit of anatomical clarification, Maya becomes extremely fixated on her dad’s past love life. She incessantly begs him to tell her the story of his past relationships and how he ultimately ended up falling in love with her mom. Reynolds soon caves and launches into the story (futilely trying to keep the details PG) of the 3 serious love interests of his 20s.
Reynolds: Fine! I’ll tell you but I won’t tell you which one was your mom. I’m changing all of the names and some of the facts.
Breslin: I like it, it’s like a love story mystery
We, along with Maya, are left to wonder who Will’s soulmate really is:
1. The beautiful college girlfriend Emily (Elizabeth Banks)
2. His Clinton campaign co-worker turned BFF April (Isla Fisher)
3. The EXTREMELY sultry journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz!!!!)
This romantic comedy love story mystery is incredibly endearing and definitely, definitely worth your time.
Billy recommends…
The Graduate (streaming on Netflix)
“You need to watch this one! It’s a classic!” might be the worst way to recommend a movie to someone and I was extremely skeptical when I threw on The Graduate. Countless recommendations saying that it holds up and it is still amazing. I thought there is no way, but I was happy to be wrong. The Graduate definitely deserves all the accolades it gets.
The two main leads in this one are Ben Braddock and Mrs. Robinson who are played perfectly by Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. The funny thing is that Bancroft is only 6 years older than Dustin Hoffman in real life. I think that says a lot about what Hollywood thinks of women when they cast them, but regardless of any controversy that comes from that, we get an incredibly amazing and sexy performance from Anne Bancroft. Her desire to seduce Ben Braddock is given meaning through her backstory and not just used as someone to lust after. Without her nuanced performance we would not have gotten an equally great performance from Dustin Hoffman.
Hoffman is hilarious in this movie. He plays the nervous young adult perfectly and it keeps you engaged throughout the whole story. Hilarious situations turn into an incredibly conflicting love story once he begins a relationship with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine. Ben wants to have a relationship with both women and he wants the decision to choose which woman he wants, but Mrs. Robinson has no interest outside of a physical one and Elaine might be his true love.
This dynamic makes you laugh, sad, and feel the loneliness of these characters. That is why this movie has stood the test of time. The emotion is almost overwhelming at times because The Graduate creates uncertainty in each decision they make once the initial confidence to make that decision wears off. This one leans into the romance aspect more than the comedy, but it is truly hilarious because of the absurdity of the situation. I can’t recommend The Graduate enough.
Sleeping with Other People (streaming on Netflix)
Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie are actors that continuously surprise me. No matter how many times I see great performances from them, I still don’t expect it. We all know how funny they can be and that’s why I watched this one. I thought that this one was going to be continuous laughs and it was that, but this movie has so much heart.
We follow Sudeikis and Brie, who are people who have intimacy dysfunction. Every relationship they get into is somehow self-sabotaged. After losing their virginity to each other in college they run into each other 12 years later. They do not develop a romantic relationship, but rather a platonic one. The sexual tension is obvious, but I love it when movies portray platonic relationships. You don’t see it often and it is always refreshing. Naturally, a romantic relationship begins to develop, but the ride of them trying to have a platonic relationship is beautiful.
These two characters were forced to take this route because of their past struggles with relationships and it ended up creating a much more beautiful and deep film. The message to the audience is positive and I wish we would see more of that in films. Sleeping with Other People will never be a certified classic, but I can’t think of many movies that are as enjoyable. Give this one a shot.
Streaming TV Corner
The Office Episode of the Week
Drew: “Baby Shower” (S5, E4)
I regret to inform you that there has been a rift between everyone’s favorite TV couple, Jim and Pam. Jenna Fischer’s St. Louis Blues will be taking on John Krasinski’s Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final. In honor of this, I chose “Baby Shower” from season 5, in which Jim and Pam find their relationship out of sync when Pam is away at art school in New York. The two get annoyed with each other as they struggle to communicate long-distance, just as Fischer and Krasinski will struggle to remain friends during this year’s Stanley Cup.
But this is also a terrific episode besides the Jim-Pam dynamic. The cold open features Dwight birthing a buttered-up watermelon (“I’m crowning!”) to prepare Michael for the birth of Jan’s daughter. Then Dwight safety tests Jan’s expensive $1,200 stroller (“Don’t get stuck in the barbed wire!”) It’s really one of Dwight’s funnier episodes. Elsewhere, Jan unabashedly and hilariously sings to her baby in front of the entire office, making everyone squirm in discomfort. And Creed gets the line of the episode when Jan is describing giving birth in a tub: “Must have been like the tide at Omaha beach.”
Finally, there’s a heartfelt ending where Jim and Pam leave each other cute voicemails, which lets us know they will make it through this rough patch after all. Just not until this series is over.
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