Isn’t It Romantic? (2019) – Ace Mini-Review

Isn’t It Romantic?
Starring: Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam Devine
Written by: Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, Katie Silberman
Directed by: Todd Strauss-Schulson
U.S.A., 2019

How good is this movie?

Something you should know about me: I’m a sucker for a decent rom com. So much of a sucker, in fact, that Hollywood’s persistent failure to produce one is a source of continual frustration to me. Isn’t It Romantic? isn’t exactly a decent rom com, but it does do a decent job of critiquing modern rom coms and calling out their more obnoxious clichés. Told from the perspective of a fat girl, it demonstrates how alienating romantic movies can be to women who aren’t conventionally beautiful. It also illustrates why living in a rom com would actually kind of suck. It does contain plenty of clichés of its own, including giving its heroine a romantic storyline, but at least this storyline makes some kind of sense. Ultimately, the movie is not so much about how rom coms are bad as about how they need to be better.

How ace is this movie?

Oddly, the importance granted to sex in rom coms is one element the film holds off from critiquing. However, it mocks plenty of other romantic movie tropes, including the idea of love at first sight and the idea that women need romance in order to be fulfilled. It emphasises the importance of friendship, though it celebrates it more as a basis for romance than as something valuable in its own right. And its happy ending, though perhaps not asexual-friendly, is at least demisexual-friendly.

3 Stars; 3 Aces

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Happy Valentine’s Day!