Genre Research

Romantic Drama

Romance films are love stories, or affairs of the heart that center on passion, emotion, and the romantic, affectionate involvement of the main characters (usually a leading man and lady), and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus. Oftentimes, lovers in screen romances (often romantic dramas) face obstacles and the hazards of hardship, finances, physical illness, racial or social class status, occupation, psychological restraints, or family that threaten to break their union and attainment of love. As in all romantic relationships, tensions of day-to-day life, temptations (of infidelity), and differences in compatibility enter into the plots of romantic films.

Romantic films often explore the essential themes of love at first sight, young (and older) love, unrequited love, obsessive love, sentimental love, spiritual love, forbidden love, sexual and passionate love, sacrificial love, explosive and destructive love, and tragic love. Romantic films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers, especially if the two people finally overcome their difficulties, declare their love, and experience life "happily ever after" - implied by a reunion and final kiss.

Many romantic films do not have fairy-tale, wistful-thinking stories or happy endings, although love serves as a shield against the harshness of the real world. Although melodramas-tearjerkers and romantic comedies may have some romance in their plots, they usually subordinate the love element to their primary goal - to provide humor or serious drama.

Romantic comedies are movies with light-hearted, humorous dramatic stories centered around romantic ideals such as a "true love" able to surmount most obstacles or the "perfect couple." Romantic comedy films are a sub-genre of comedy films as well as of romance films.

The basic plot of a romantic comedy is that two people, usually a man and a woman, meet and then part ways due to an argument or other contrived obstacles. Initially, these two people do not become romantically involved, because they believe that they do not like each other, because one of them already has a partner, or social pressures. However, the screenwriters leave obvious clues that suggest that the characters are in fact attracted to each other, or that they would be a good love match.

While the two people are separated, one or both individuals then realize that they are "perfect" for each other, or that they are in love with the other person. Then, after one of the two makes some spectacular effort to find the other person and declare their love, (this is sometimes called the grand gesture), or due to an astonishing coincidental encounter, the two meet again. Then, perhaps with some comic friction or awkwardness, they declare their love for each other and the film ends happily.