Romantic comedies aren’t dead. They’ve just come back to life with stitches, sarcasm, and a feminist bite. Forget the perfectly lit meet-cutes of the ’90s. In 2025, love stories look a lot weirder: sometimes you fall for a closet monster, sometimes your dream guy is literally reanimated, and sometimes Jennifer Lawrence gets hired to seduce a socially awkward teenager.
That’s the vibe of Your Monster, Lisa Frankenstein, and No Hard Feelings. Three films that prove rom-com hasn’t vanished; it’s just mutated. Together, they reveal how modern dating stories remix the genre’s classic tropes, challenge outdated gender roles, and reflect how love and self-discovery look in the age of feminism and absurdity.
1.Your Monster
Monsters Make Better Boyfriends
In Your Monster, the heroine doesn’t pine for Prince Charming. She discovers romance with the creature living in her closet. Instead of a damsel waiting to be saved, she reclaims her life and power after heartbreak. The monster isn’t there to terrify her but to encourage her. It’s part horror parody and part empowerment anthem. A reminder that embracing your own weirdness (and maybe your demons) is sexier than playing it safe.
2. Lisa Frankenstein
Goth Girls Get the Guy
Lisa Frankenstein takes teen rom-com tropes and blasts them with neon camp. Written by Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer’s Body) and directed by Zelda Williams, the movie reimagines the “bad boy love interest.” Except he’s a reanimated corpse thats stitched together from spare parts. Instead of being punished for her unconventional desires, the heroine gets celebrated for them. It’s goth-girl wish fulfillment wrapped in camp horror, with a wink at every suburban parent who just doesn’t get it.
3.No Hard Feelings
Jennifer Lawrence vs. Gender Scripts
Then there’s No Hard Feelings, which flips one of the genre’s most tired setups. The older man schooling an inexperienced young woman gets a twist: Jennifer Lawrence plays a woman hired to “date” a painfully shy 19-year-old heading off to college. It could have been creepy, but the film plays it as sharp satire. Lawrence’s character owns her sexuality without apology, while the humor comes from exposing how ridiculous these old double standards look when the genders are reversed.
Put together, these rom-com mutations show exactly where dating culture stands right now. Love isn’t about picture-perfect proposals or airport chases anymore; it’s about self-discovery, weirdness, and agency. These films lean into feminism without preaching. Their heroines don’t get punished for wanting too much, being too bold, or refusing to fit the mold.
And the humor? It doesn’t reinforce outdated stereotypes. It laughs at them. From monsters as emotional support systems to corpses as dreamy boyfriends, the absurdity is the point.
The Real Meet-Cute
Here’s the twist all three films share: the endings aren’t really about the romance at all. Sure, there are monsters kissed and corpses cuddled, but the real payoff is self-discovery. Each heroine walks away stronger, weirder, and more unapologetically herself than when she started. That’s the big shift in 2020s rom-coms. The happy ending isn’t “I got the guy,” it’s “I found me.”
Rom-coms aren’t gone; they’ve just evolved into something stranger, funnier, and more feminist. Your Monster, Lisa Frankenstein, and No Hard Feelings remind us that love stories don’t have to be neat..
In 2025, the new happily-ever-after isn’t about perfection. It’s owning your chaos and kissing a monster who listens. In this new era of love stories, the real meet-cute is the one you have with your own power.
