The experience of watching this unique musical tragedy by Danish director Lars Von Trier is burned on my brain. I was a new mum and it was a rare moment when the baby was asleep and I had a few hours to watch a film.
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My favourite family-friendly films have a bit of salt and sour with their sweetness and this gorgeous British comedy is genuinely funny, a little bit sad and a tad subversive. It also has some of the best child actors in the business.
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I’m not at all an expert on LGBTQI+ films and will be interested in what my more learned friends post. I nearly chose Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden (2016), which was a delight from start to finish, but Maya Newell’s Australian documentary about same-sex parents remains one of the best documentaries I have seen.
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I found this the hardest prompt of the lot but, in the end, I couldn’t not choose Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Trois Couleurs (Three Colours) trilogy. After Hal Hartley, Kieślowski was my next favourite director and this trilogy was the first time I saw films that interconnected.
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My first favourite director was Hal Hartley, born from seeing and loving his first two features; The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and Trust (1990). Trust might not be typically classed as a romcom – the romance doesn’t drive the narrative and the comedy is decidedly dark – but it is hands down my favourite.
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Have you heard of the Bechdel Test? The concept was created by Alison Bechdel in 1985 in a strip called The Rule in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For. It tests films on three criteria: it must have at least two women (named characters) talk to each other about something other than a man. It is a very low bar to pass but still more than 40% of US films fail it.
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The definition of guilty pleasure is “something that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard.” I have a trousseau of romcoms that would fit this brief and one of my favourites is this British gem starring Kelly Macdonald and David Tennant.
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As a teen, I loved Grease (1978), Star Wars (1977) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) but at age 11, I discovered cinema and my life was never the same.
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Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron were a magic combination for witty dialogue and interesting characters. Combine that with Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby at the height of their game and you have a film that you can’t help but quote.
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I don’t love everything that Jennifer Garner does but I find her films usually very watchable and there is something about the characters she chooses and the way she comes across in her socials that makes me like her. She is funny.
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