Founded in the 1950s, the genre of romantic comedies has transformed bad days, girls nights, and dreams of hopeless romantics everywhere. Bridget Jones’s Diary, You’ve Got Mail, Notting Hill, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, My Best Friend’s Wedding, When Harry Met Sally, 10 Things I Hate About You, Pretty Woman, Crazy, Stupid, Love, and The Notebook are all classics. If you haven’t seen them, I recommend you find them on your streaming site of choice and binge them ASAP!
I have fond memories of lounging on the yellow couch in my living room at ten years old, watching these movies with my mom. I grew up watching these wonderful, goofy, and sweet rom-coms, and I assume you have too. Full of lighthearted humor, positive relationships, obstacles overcame, and cute friendships, rom-coms are intended to make the viewer feel just as good as the characters depicted in it seem.
Unfortunately, some just don’t cut it. While most rom-coms hold a special place in my heart, others were simply painful to watch. In my nineteen years of existence, I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly! I’ll let you learn from my mistakes and avoid wasting the twenty hours of my life that I’ll never get back.
About Time
Coming from the minds behind Notting Hill, I was expecting romance, struggle, and in the end, happiness. All I got was time travel and Rachel McAdams. Don’t get me wrong, the plot is well thought-out, the characters are fun and goofy, and the dialogue is good, but would I watch this again? Hard no.
Always Be My Maybe
The story of childhood sweethearts reconnecting after a decade and a half sprinkled with Keanu Reeves and clever jokes sounds like the perfect movie. I was wrong. The snail’s pace at which this movie moves and lack of depth made it extremely hard to watch. I was proud of myself for finishing this dull, boring, and over-hyped Netflix film.
Ibiza
If you want to watch an hour and thirty-four minutes of partying, montages of Barcelona and Ibiza, a tacky romance with a DJ, and crazy shenanigans, be my guest. But remember that I warned you. This movie chronicles the adventures of a woman who brings her friends along on a work trip, meets a DJ, falls in love, gets fired from her job, and realizes her passion. The worst part: the movie ends with no romantic gesture, happy ending, or reunion – just an uncertain decision.
My Perfect Romance
The unrealistic set, horrible workplace romance, and cheesy lines made this movie unbearable to watch. In a nutshell, this movie follows the unrealistic adventure of a young woman who creates up a dating algorithm, encourages her entire office to be the guinea pigs, and then is the only person to match on it. It gets worse: she matches with her boss. Truthfully, I didn’t even finish this movie because it was so bad, but I can only imagine what happens.
She’s Out of My League
There’s only one word to describe this movie: awkward. The classic plot line we’ve all seen before – geeky boy falls in love with the hot girl – is taken to a whole new level in this rom-com. While I cringed the ENTIRE movie, I will raise a glass to the clever writers behind the script. To the movie’s credit, it does end with a pretty spectacular montage of the couple flying off into the sunset.
Someone Great
When I think of Rom-com, the last thing I expect is a lasting breakup. That is exactly what this movie delivers. From the movie that launched Lizzo’s career and got the world obsessed with Truth Hurts, I craved more. I will give it to them, Gina Rodriguez, Brittney Snow, and Hannah Davis define girl power and friendship, but this movie is not one I will be turning on in the future.
The Ugly Truth
As a major Grey’s Anatomy fan, I’m excited to watch anything Katherine Heigl is in. 27 Dresses? Amazing! Life as We Know It? Yes! Yes! Yes! But, I was sadly mistaken with The Ugly Truth. In my opinion, her character Abby was too smart to fall in love with Gerard Butler’s Mike, but competition brings out the best (read: worst) in people. Her eventual love interest is a narcissistic character whose repetitive actions speak louder than words. I will say that it is probably the best one on this list. Unfortunately, it would still be a stretch to demand that you watch it.
Wine Country
To be honest, some of my favorite movies depict moms relieving their glory days (hello Bad Moms!). This was not one of them. Mixing wine, 50th birthdays, women, divorce, recent firings, a vineyard, and a creepy caretaker turned out exactly how you think it would: terrible. Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph, I expected better!
Hmmm, I guess it wasn’t so happily ever after, after all.