m/f romance and the skeptical audience

[kindkit]

I just watched I Know Where I'm Going, another lovely Powell and Pressburger film with another m/f romance that I found completely unconvincing. The IMDB forums, on the other hand, are full of praise for the love story.

Now, I know I'm a tough audience for m/f romance. But there have occasionally been some that I've believed in and liked! Really! So when I find them unconvincing or unmoving, it makes me wonder whether many viewers find heterosexual romantic stories convincing merely because they're heterosexual (the stories, that is, not the viewers, although I suppose straight people are the target audience for straight-focused stories), and because the convention is that the female and male leads will get together. Whereas because I am not straight and not invested in this assumption that men and women should pair off together, I tend to want evidence that these people really love each other and will be happy together; I don't just assume that they "naturally" do and will.

I may be a tough sell, in other words, but the storytellers assume they're making their pitch to people who are 90% sold already.

And it tells you a lot about how much I like Powell and Pressburger's work that I'm willing to sit through the romance parts.

Comments

[kindkit]

Yes, and usually in stories where there's a best-friend relationship, it's possible to see why the friends care for each other. The writers put some work into it, which is not often the case with the romantic relationship.

One of the great things about Hot Fuzz, where the central male-male friendship is structured like a romance but is nominally a story about friendship, is that the audience sees Nicholas and Danny growing closer. Their relationship is built, not taken for granted.