Movies 4 fans

The Secret City Of Love?

I love to call New York the “The Secret City Of Love” because of the romanticism that movies give it. Every time a movie is set in New York, I can’t help but think “Wow I wanna live there so bad” and every time I visit, everything about it feels so cinematic. I can’t help but listen to happy music when thinking about the city.

I love it when settings enhance the movie instead of just being a place as a background. New York is often used to play into the movie and make the scenes more cinematic and pleasing to the eye.

Top 4 RomComs Set in New York

These are my personal favorite movies that I always think about when I visit New York.

1. How to lose a guy in 10 days

“All’s fair in love and war”-Andie Anderson

*I feel like this is THE romcom, a lot of people my age think of when someone says “name a romcom”

This movie goes starts off with our main character Andie Anderson creating an experiment for her magazine company where she is gonna try and meet a guy, make him crazy for her, and then drive him away in 10 days by using all the tactics that her friends and other women have done to accidentally lose a guy. She meets a guy, Benjamin Barry, who is also participating in a similar bet (getting a girl to fall in love with him in a week) and they start off their experiments. They both start in this normal relationship until it takes a turn when Andie starts to use all her friends tactics to try and make him break up with her.

But Ben being determined to win his bet, stays and even ends up taking her to meet his family, making her the first girl he has ever taken to meet the family. They both realize that their little experiments failed when they fell in love but they refuse to accept it when they are both hurt by the fact that the other was doing a bet and not “real dating” causing Andie to want to leave the city. “No I didn’t Ben, ’cause you can’t lose something you never had!” Ben finds out about this and chases her down to confess his feelings and finally get together again (this time without a bet involved)

Throughout the movie, the theme of the complexity of love is explored and shows how true the saying of “When you know you know” is. My favorite thing about it is how they also represented the “curly hair theory” in which people say a girl’s hair gets curlier the more in love she is, like Andie who starts off the movie with straight hair and by the end scene, her hair is fully curled.

The setting in this movie features some of Manhattans best places to visit like Madison Avenue and the Manhattan Bridge. One of the most iconic scenes is at the end when Ben confronts Andie and they both confess their feelings to each other in the middle of a busy Manhattan bridge. The use of the bridge is a symbol of how they have finally connected and are ready to meet “halfway” and be together. The city’s vibrant and busy streets also really captures the feelings that every hopeless romantic yearns for, making it my personal favorite romcom set in New York.

2. 27 Dresses

“Love is patient, love is kind, love means slowly losing your mind”-Kevin Doyle

This movie is definitely a close second when deciding my favorite New York based romcom.

*Before starting, I feel like I should mention that this is one of many underrated romcoms that is well liked yet not talked about enough, but I really do love this movie and it’s iconic Bennie and the jets scene

This movies two main characters are nothing alike, Jane Nichols loves wedding and the concept of love, causing her to be a bridesmaid in numerous weddings and helping the brides with planning. Meanwhile Kevin Doyle, a wedding announcement writer who doesn’t believe in in weddings and even almost hates wedding meets her in a shared cab after she attends two weddings in one night.

When Jane’s younger sister Tess falls in love and gets engaged to Janes boss and secret crush, Jane finds herself questioning her role as a wedding lover, not wanting anything to do with her wedding, leading to her even attempting to sabotage it. Meanwhile Kevin has been tasked with writing a news article on Tess’ weddings but instead decides to write about Jane and her obsession with weddings. At the end of course they fall in love and get married, relieving Jane of all he chaotic life as a bridesmaid and turning her into the bride.

Now let’s get to the setting, New York is used here perfectly not only to capture the comforting feeling that romcoms give but serves to connect the non stop commotion of the big city with how busy Jane spends most of the time trying to be the “Perfect Bridesmaid”. For example the first time our main characters meet is at night where the city can be seen as busy and chaotic to show how her life is. But by the end, the setting at the beach wedding perfectly aligns with how she has now finally stopped being the perfect bridesmaid and she can now finally be the bride and not have to worry about anything but being a bridesmaid, represented by one of her most memorable lines, “I went to a wedding where no one asked me to hold the bouquet, fold a place card, or hold their dress while they peed”

3. 13 Going on 30

“We need to remember what used to be good. If we don’t, we won’t recognize it even if it hits us between the eyes”-Jenna Rink

This movie follows our main character Jenna Rink who makes a wish to be 30 years old on her 13th birthday after the “popular girls” humiliated her at her birthday party and her best friend Matt Flamhaff gave her a magic pixie dust filled doll house where she says her iconic line “I want to be 30! 30, flirty, and thriving!”

She instantly wakes up being 30 years old in New York City and spends the first half of her movie figuring out what her life is now like and doing all the “cool” activities she saw on her magazines from back in her 13 year old life. She has the whole magazine life with her new best friend Lucy (who later turns out to be a traitor) her new closet filled with designer, and her dream job in a magazine company. She enjoys dressing up and being the woman she wanted to be until she realizes that this amazing adult life she always craved wasn’t all she thought it would be when she realizes her and her childhood BFF Matt had drifted away from her life and they were no longer close.

After realizing she misses her best friend and that he makes her more happy than her entire adult life had made her. She decides to go back in time to when she was 13 so that she can embrace her true self and not try to be some cool stereotype she thought she wanted to be, and of course she realizes she loves Matt.

Now, what does New York have to do with this? It’s visuals help showcase how glamorous and successful her life is now at 30, yet how isolating it was for her to not have her best friend with her and not having any real close relationships with anyone around her, even showing how “The city that never sleeps” was the perfect setting to show how her supposed best friend Lucy betrayed her yet the world kept spinning and Jenna had to try and get back into the spin. New York was perfectly used to contrast her previous childhood home based on the suburbs and comfy feeling to now this huge city with so much going on. Then she finally goes back to her home and feels more like herself. “I think all of us want a love that is pure and full of truth.” 

4. Enchanted

“I’ve been dreaming of a true love’s kiss, and a prince I’m hoping comes with this”-Giselle

*I think this might be THE most underrated romcom mostly because it’s a Disney movie, and I also think it’s funny that James Marsden appears twice in this top 4.

**I might have gotten carried away with my summary of the movie so skip to the setting if that’s what you’re here for.

A fairytale come to life when Gisselle (an animated character) meets and falls in love with Prince Edward of the kingdom of Andalasia after he saves her from an evil troll. She meets him and they agree to get married, on her wedding day the evil step mom of Prince Edward pushes Gisselle down a portal to where she ends up in present day New York (as a real person) Gisselle, lost and confused, tries to find how to get back and ends up stumbling into a single dad and lawyer, Robert and his daughter Morgan.

Convinced she is a real princess like she claims, Morgan begs her dad to let her stay overnight and she does. The next day Gisselle cleans up Robert and Morgans apartment and accidentally makes Roberts girlfriend Nancy think that Robert is cheating on him. Robert then sends Gisselle away but goes back to her when he realizes how clueless she is for giving her only money to a lady feeding piegons on a chair.

Robert and Gisselle get to know each other while strolling through central park and talking about true love and how excited Gisselle is to go see her prince. Through a fun musical number we learn how much Gisselle and Robert are not a like, Gisselle is hopeful and bubbly while Robert is practical and a little bit skeptical, and Gisselle tries to change his mindset with said song with lyrics like “It’s Not Enough To Take The One You Love For Granted” and “Everybody wants to know that your love is true”. Gisselle starts to realize maybe her and Edward aren’t ready for marriage since they have not even been on one date. Mean while Prince Edward is also in Central Park searching for his Princess.

Near the end of the movie Edward finds Gisselle and takes her with him on a stroll through New York since Gisselle wants to give dating a try. She realizes they are not really a match and she instead wants to give it more time and go to the same gala she made Robert ask Nancy to go with him to. Both of the couples go to a gala and evil step mom tries to kill Gisselle but Robert saves her with a true loves kiss.

At the end Gisselle choses to stay in New York rather than Andalasia and lives her life with her true love Robert and her new best friend Morgan, While Prince Edward goes with Nancy back to Andalasia, causing both new couples to live their “Happily ever after” that they were always looking for.

Now onto the real topic, New York City. The city enhances this movie by creating a contrast between how Gisselle views the world in her little bubble of happiness vs the realities of how life really is. The caos in the city is perfectly used to help shape Gisselles views and help her realize that life isn’t simple but instead is more complicated. But it also shows her that even though it can be unpredictable, it can be the good kind like in her musical number in central city where she makes the best out of New York and makes it fit into her vision instead of the city Turning her into its vision of reality. And by her using all the “bad stuff” about New York like the pests to do something good like cleaning Roberts apartment, it shows how she still finds the best in life even if its “cleaning up the toilet” with roaches in her lyric “Hosing down the garbage pail and scrubbing up the toilet!” Overall this might be one of the most underrated romcoms to exist using both comedy and fairytale elements to see the better in the “Big Apple” rather than be like Robert and not see the best in things.

Songs of the month!

For those of you who do not know, I love making playlists about life and took the liberty of making my very own 5+ hours of RomCom soundtracks and songs I thought give the RomnCom vibes. My Spotify playlist is FlamingoPink1227 and my Letterboxd is Flamingopink27 make sure to follow! I might make and suggest my playlists with each of my blogs.

Now it’s time for songs of the post! A small segment where I write my favorite songs that have the same themes as the article!

Today’s songs:

• “Kiss Me”-Sixpence None The Richer
• “Can’t Take My Eyes Off you”-Frankie Valli
• “Something’ Stupid”-Frank Sinatra
• “Bennie And The Jets” by Elton John sung in 27 Dresses

Thank you for reading, see you next time! -FlamingoPink

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