Rom-com films are a “bygone era”, according to ‘Love Actually’ star Thomas Brodie-Sangster
Successful rom-com films are now of a “bygone era”, according to Love Actually star Thomas Brodie-Sangster.
The actor, who starred in the 2003 Christmas classic as a child alongside Liam Neeson, playing his step-father, said that the quality of the romantic comedy genre was at its best in the pre-smartphone age, which is now a “bygone era”.
Brodie-Sangster told the Daily Telegraph in a recent interview that, by comparison to the likes of Love Actually, rom-com films made nowadays feel “rushed”.
Referring to the height of the genre, he said: “It was a kind of simpler time, and maybe that is more romantic. And there were some greats, like Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron, who did some brilliant stuff in the ‘90s: When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, they’re just brilliant films.”
The actor added: “Things kind of go around and come around, fashions change and, when they’re done well, a good rom-com can be brilliant. I hope that they will come back around.”
Brodie-Sangster speculated that the downturn in good rom-coms could be attributed to the takeover of streaming, with bigger blockbusters taking up the majority of space in the market of cinematic releases.
“So [rom-coms] are more reserved for the streamers, perhaps, and maybe that’s changed the budgeting and the scale that they can do,” he mused. “When the volume goes up, the quality can – not necessarily always does – but can go down.”
As a result, the former child star claimed that more and more modern rom-coms feel “rushed” as writers for streaming services “need to tap into the zeitgeist of what’s happening at this moment immediately, otherwise the public is going to be on to something else”.
He added, “They get greenlit for a certain period of time. Then they just have to send out whatever they’ve got to get some attention. And so often it’s just not very good.”
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