'Isn't It Romantic?' is only pretending to be a different kind of rom-com
Isn't It Romantic? will have you know that it is not like other rom-coms.
Its heroine, Natalie (Rebel Wilson) doesn't look like most other rom-com heroines. She does not have a lavish apartment, or an adorable wardrobe, or even an Instagram-ready pet. She isn't especially interested in finding love. And she definitely doesn't like rom-coms themselves. "All these movies are lies," she huffs. "So unrealistic!"
In truth, though, Isn't It Romantic? is, in almost all respects, exactly like other rom-coms, down to the sugar-coated morals it wants to feed you. It's just one that loudly calls attention to the tropes it's using before using them, and then pats itself on the back for turning them on their heads – never mind that most of those "subversions" have themselves been rom-com staples for years.
The film opens in the "real" version of New York, so gloriously gross and sticky that it made this former New Yorker feel positively homesick. After Natalie hits her head, however, she enters a candy-colored version of the city littered with cupcake shops and bridal stores, and populated by pretty people in flattering clothes.
Even as the film winks and nudges to let you know it's in on the joke, it borrows enough of the genre's tricks to deliver a passable imitation. Liam Hemsworth is a hoot as the guy who's too "CW hot" to be true – and almost as dim as he is sexy. And some of its observations about rom-com silliness are, if not exactly original, at least pretty amusing. Slow-motion sprints to grand romantic gestures are inherently silly!
Plus, there's a gratuitous karaoke moment that really works, even if it's just because it's hard to go wrong with "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." It is one of the few moments of Isn't It Romantic? that achieves the fluffy transcendence of the films it's trying to parody. Not coincidentally, it's also one of the few that's played relatively straight.
Where Isn't It Romantic? runs into trouble is when it tries to go beyond winking at stereotypical rom-com details and trying to comment on deeper issues – like gay male best friends, jealous female frenemies, a lack of diversity, and the general concept of finding happily ever after in a man – while acting completely oblivious to the fact that dozens of earlier rom-coms have tackled them already.
Films take years to develop, produce, and market, and it's possible that had Isn't It Romantic? come out even two years ago, when the traditional rom-com movie seemed all but dead, it'd have felt fresher. Its premise might have felt more novel, its insights more trenchant, its smugness easier to stomach.
Isn't It Romantic? does not, in the end, manage to forge anything new.
Unfortunately for Isn't It Romantic?, it's coming right as the genre is on the rise again, and looking more heterogenous than ever. In the past year, movies like Love, Simon, Set It Up, Crazy Rich Asians, and To All the Boys I've Loved Before have put their own spins on well-worn conventions, and addressed a lot of Isn't It Romantic?'s critiques in the process – to say nothing of shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Jane the Virgin, and You're the Worst, which have been doing so for seasons already.
In that company, Isn't It Romantic? feels like a missed opportunity. It is revolutionary to have plus-sized woman like Wilson in a romantic lead role. It is worth acknowledging that these movies are selling a fantasy, some of them toxic. It is equally worth trying to convince the timid and the skeptical to consider opening themselves up to the world. We could use a romantic comedy that acknowledges those things, and expands our ideas of what this genre can be.
But Isn't It Romantic? does not, in the end, manage to forge something new from those elements. It's so busy working to remind you of everything it's trying not to be, that it never quite gets around to figuring out what it actually is.
