All those Hollywood love films make being cool look so easy, but really, looking like a million bucks is no walk in the park. Rom-coms usually cast drop dead beautiful actors and actresses and we’re supposed to believe finding Mr. and Mrs. Right was some sort of an accomplishment for them? Please!
Luckily, for the rest of us who haven’t been blessed with god and goddess like features and who are awkward in any type of social situations, there’s hope in these movies. It’s these characters who should be our role models. Hey, if they found love, so can we. So. Can. We!
Harold and Maude (1971)
Harold and Maude is the “classic” rom-com: Boy obsessed with death meets 70 year old woman. Boy falls in love with old woman; old woman is amazing at everything; the woman teaches the boy a thing or two about life; and they end up falling in love. Ok, it’s not your typical rom-com, but it’s the best there is. It’s obviously a complete mismatch between a rich teenager who rebels against the life his mother has structured for him and a funnily and extremely quirky woman who lives life to the fullest. What do we learn about this story? That there’s someone out there for every weirdo.
Shrek (2001)
Shrek is a fairy tale parody in which a huge, monstrous, green ogre sees his home invaded by fairy tale characters. The only way for them to leave is for him to rescue a beautiful human princess Fiona. But Fiona has secrets, herself. She fails to be impressed by Shrek’s grotesqueness and they all eventually realize it’s what’s on the inside that really counts.
Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
This Jane Austenesque film follows Bridget Jones, a middle class British woman in search of a man to marry. Though Bridget is beautiful (and a bit overweight for Hollywood’s standards, but aren’t we all?) and prone to mishaps and funny situations, she overhears Mark Darcy disdaining her at a Christmas party. So this girl takes it upon herself to never fall in love with that guy. But fails. Mark Darcy surprises her by saying: “I like you, very much.” To which she replies sarcastically: “Ah, apart from the smoking and the drinking, the vulgar mother and… ah, the verbal diarrhea.” But he’s dead serious: “No, I like you very much. Just as you are.”
Hitch (2005)
Will Smith plays a hunk who coaches awkward guys to get the girl of their dreams. He teaches them to stop acting awkwardly and to plan strategies to seem like they have it together. Funnily enough, though, while it seems he uses dishonesty as a method, he finally realizes none of his advice has worked and that each of the guys has won his girl over by being weird and cute. There is hope for us all!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI4zQIUbNUE
Love Actually (2003)
Love Actually is the ultimate rom-com/Christmas carol movie. Pretty much every character here is a little odd: there’s the office worker who has secretly been in love with a co-worker for years, the 10-year-old boy in love with his classmate, the chubby secretary who falls in love with the Prime Minister, and the British guy who can’t catch a break and is forced to move to the US just to get some action. It’s a movie that shows you nobody is an expert at love, but we can strive for it anyway. Then again, it helps if you’re the Prime Minister.
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
This Shakespeare re-telling of The Taming Of The Shrew is one of the best teenage romantic films ever. It actually features pretty cool characters: a teenage actor, a badass ice princess, a guy who is totally tough, and the cutest girl in school. But, for the coolness and stories everyone shares on the outside, they all hide some sort of bad experience that has made them who they are. Eventually, every Jack gets his Jill. Even the couple who dress up as Elizabethans (Relate!).
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Toula Portokalos is 30, unmarried, a little on the social awkward side, and Greek. Very Greek. She longs for independence and a break from her staunchly Greek family. Then she meets Ian Miller, a decidedly non-Greek who sweeps her off his feet. However, first they have to win over her weird, crazy, loving family. And yes, spoiler alert, they nail it.
About A Boy (2002)
About A boy tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a slacker womanizer and a boy who is being bullied at school, and how the older of them attempts to teach the boy to be cool. Predictably, it’s the young boy who ends up teaching the slacker a couple of lessons. Each of them confront their love lives differently but eventually both of them find their own place in the World, and… with a girlfriend. See? It’s not that bad.
All in all, you can be meowing-at-cats-weird and still find someone to spend your days with. Beware, though, he or she might be a little weird, as well, or better: weirder than you.
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