This is my month! Not just in terms of it being all about romance for Thursday Movie Picks but it’s my BIRTHDAY MONTH! This year, after the hell 2020 was, I’ve decided to sort of celebrate throughout the month. Just have fun with it. I have a vacation coming up and I just hope to fully book my days with stuff I love. But I digress, we’re here for romance tropes and fake relationships! For those who do not yet know I love a fake relationship trope to hell and back. It’s fun, it’s weird and it just brings me joy. The trope itself is more common in books I feel like so picking three movies was harder but not impossible. No theme within a theme (unless you count underrated movies a theme) because there’s not a lot of fake relationship movies out there and that’s a shame.
3. PICTURE PERFECT (1997)
You guys!!!! Remember Picture Perfect? The Jennifer Aniston movie where she pretends she has a fiancé to impress her boss. I think, and I can be wrong, this was my first introduction to the fake relationship trope. So I mean this could be the beginning of it all, this is the start of my obsession. Picture Perfect itself is not perfect but honestly 90’s rom coms are just dear to my heart whatever happens in them. They just have so much charm that has been lost along the way so it’s very easy to love them now. Anyway, getting carried away now because I just realised I need to rewatch this cute movie in the near future.
2. THE WEDDING DATE (2005)
Everyone hates this, at least that’s what the scores around the web tell me but y’all, I love it! The Wedding Date was one of the movies I defended during the Against the Crowd Blogathon a while back and I still stand by it. It’s not perfect but have you all seen the crap Netflix puts out? The romance genre is slowly dying into Hallmark territory across all the streaming platforms and I’m hating every minute of it. The Wedding Date as its name says is about a woman hiring a man to be her date for her sister’s wedding. Debra Messing is cute as hell here, Dermot Mulroney delivers the goods and Amy Adams and Jack Davenport are great too. There’s a bit of drama too but mostly it’s just charming.
1. THE PROPOSAL (2009)
The mother of fake relationship trope movies, the father of the fake it until you make it, the movie that I absolutely love and will always consider as the last good rom com of our time (until they bring back the genre in its full glory that is) – The Proposal! This is gold. This is perfection. There’s no better duo to witness on screen than Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds! The power dynamics here alone are amazing to witness, the wit, the cleverness and BETTY WHITE! If I could watch just one romance movie until I die, this would be it. 90’s movies are great and all but The Proposal… it’s just that dear to my heart.
THIS SERIES IS CREATED BY WANDERING THROUGH THE SHELVES
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Happy Birthday month! You have to celebrate absolutely everything in times like this!
Over the moon with all the love for The Proposal this week – it’s the ULTIMATE romcom <3
I know! I’m celebrating haircuts even as I had not had one in 1,5 years. I did get one now so like.. I celebrated. lol.
I liked but didn’t love either The Wedding Date and The Proposal. I like the second one better, Betty White is alot of fun, but I’ve never had a great urge to revisit either since I saw them initially.
However we match on Picture Perfect. LOVE that film!! Jennifer Aniston is charming in it but Jay Mohr is so disarming and I think that’s what tips it over for me from like to love. A wonderful supporting cast helps too. Olympia Dukakis is a scream as Jen’s mother.
Outside of our match there are many others with this particular trope, it’s just that you have to reach back a ways to find many of them.
Picture Perfect (1997)-Kate Mosley (Jennifer Aniston) toils in a junior position at a big New York advertising agency and despite her competence cannot seem to get ahead. Turns out her boss feels she is too much of a free spirit and tells her he needs to see her commitment to settling down before she moves up in the company. So when she goes to a wedding and has a picture taken with a stranger named Nick (Jay Mohr) she passes him off as her fiancée earning her a promotion. Since he lives in Boston all is well with the deception until he becomes famous by saving a child from a burning building and her boss wants to meet him. On the spot she finds Nick and convinces him to play along but complications ensue. Bright, breezy romcom with a terrific cast.
Come Live with Me (1941)-Viennese immigrant Johnny Jones (a ravishing Hedy Lamarr) is in danger of being deported unless she gets married pronto. The problem is that her wealthy boyfriend, publisher Barton Kendrick (Ian Hunter) is already married and wife Diana (Verree Teasdale) isn’t about to give him a divorce! By chance she meets broke writer Bill Smith (James Stewart) and proposes a marriage of convenience. Instantly smitten Bill goes along but has ideas of his own. Though they seem polar opposites Hedy and Jimmy make a most compatible couple.
Hired Wife (1940)-To avoid a hostile takeover of his cement company CEO Stephen Dexter (Brian Aherne) proposes an in name only marriage to his super-efficient secretary Kendal (Rosalind Russell) so he can transfer his assets to her name. She consents but when the danger is passed and Stephen wants a divorce so he can return to his gold-digging former girlfriend Phyllis (Virginia Bruce) Kendal, who carries a torch for him, pulls all sorts of tricks and ploys to maintain the ruse. Roz was one of the queens of this sort of screwy comedies in the 40’s and she’s a vivacious delight here.
We match!?!? That almost never happens. Glad you like Picture Perfect, I’ve now rewatched it and it still holds up well. 😀
I’ve never heard of Picture Perfect but I’ve seen your other two!
What? Well then I recommend it, it’s not the like.. bestest but it’s cute as hell.
Hey! My birthday is this month too! Happy early birthday! I also really enjoyed watching the Proposal! It’s one of my favorite romantic comedies!
Happy early birthday to us! The Proposal definitely is a good one, I love to rewatch it every now and then. 🙂
I love The Proposal!
YAAAS!!
It’s been so long since I’ve seen The Wedding Date but I need to watch it again! I remember enjoying it and you are SO right… it feels like Hallmark-type romances are bleeding into every streaming service. Just… WHY.