Rumors Of The Death Of The Rom-Com Are Greatly Exaggerated

The debate about whether romantic comedies are — or ever were — dead is an old one by now. In fact, I wrote about it five years ago.

It's a sad but true fact that genres that fall between giant big-budget tentpoles and itty-bitty indies have receded in the last 20 years or so: the adult drama, the sports movie, the live-action family movie, and yes, the romantic comedy. It's not a complete vanishing: Rom-coms continue to be made, and they continue to be recognized. 2017's The Big Sick is an example that managed both a sizable audience and an Oscar nomination (for best original screenplay).

But we certainly don't have theand , yes, but also and and . Maybe it's changes to the business, maybe it's the declining quality of scripts (does the genre have a new Nora Ephron? — of course not, nor could it ever), or maybe it's that we don't have the durable stars we did then who want to work in such a likability-driven form.