From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy

Journalist Meslow examines in his breezy debut the last 30 years of romantic comedy films, from 1989’s When Harry Met Sally to 2018’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. A chapter on Pretty Woman reveals that it started out as a grittier drama entitled Three Thousand, while in a consideration of Hugh Grant, Meslow writes that the actor “hides the amount of work he puts into his performances under a thick layer of irony.” My Big Fat Greek Wedding, meanwhile, was so successful upon its 2002 release because of how “natural and grounded” it was “in an era of rom-coms that were increasingly untethered from reality.” Along the way, Meslow makes good points about a lack of diversity in the rom-com world but devotes little space to non-heterosexual film examples, and while the chapters are individually satisfying, they don’t build to make a bigger case. Still, romance fans will find plenty to enjoy in this punchy retrospective. Agent: Noah Ballard, Curtis Brown. (Feb.)