#go watch this if you loved shows like bridgerton or the artful dodger :)

[triss-merigolds]

My Lady Jane (2024) - 1x01 Who’ll Be The Next In Line?

[mermaidsirennikita]

I’ve started watching The Artful Dodger and loving it, it’s far better than Bridgerton at actually capturing the essence of a romance novel (my first thought upon seeing Jack and Belle interact was that it could’ve been ripped straight from a romance novel). Do you have any recs for tv shows or movies that have the vibes of a romance novel?

Ooh yes!

Oldie but a goodie and if anyone hasn't seen it they should (and really, the whole trilogy--the second movie gets a bad rap, but I personally so enjoy it, and I love the third movie for a lot of reasons but the "REIGNITE. OUR. LOVE." sequence is absolutely one of them, the "we are gonna FUCK THIS SHIT OUT" vibes are sooo romance novel for me). Bridget Jones's Diary. Mark Darcy is just an amazing hero. Bridget is a legend. Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver is PEAK Hugh Grant, and his introduction in that film is one of the greatest character intros I have ever. Seen in cinema. I see some people knock on it because of things that have aged--Bridget worrying over her weight because it's the early 2000s and super skinny was the trend, the workplace harassment. I don't give a fuck. If you haven't seen Bridget Jones's Diary, you are doing yourself a disservice.

(It is based on a book, but that book is not a romance novel. The movies are.)

Ummm speaking of Hugh Grant, Music & Lyrics is an underrated BANGER and absolutely fucking reads as a romance novel. A washed up has-been pop star begins a creative partnership with the messy neurotic woman who waters his plants? He does a flop attempt at defending her honor to do the guy who did her wrong. There's a grand gesture/grovel moment ffs. It's GREAT. The music is AMAZING. POP! Goes My Heart!

This one is borderline because it is more of a girls trip comedy, but the romance is truly centered so well and is a swoony romance and it features peak Richard Madden and it is again, so underrated. Netflix's Ibiza, dude. Buttoned up marketing girl goes on a business trip to Spain, her two best friends (who are both much wilder than her) accompany her and they go to the club one night and see DJ Richard Madden (LEOOOOO WESSSSST) and he and the main girl have this amazing meet cute that involves someone drawing a dick on her face in glow in the dark marker and him coming to the rescue, but then he has to go to a gig in Ibiza and she and her friends decide to track him down because some people are destined to go to the moon, but her destiny is to FUCK. THAT. DJ. But Harper and Leo's connection is more like love at first sight than pure horniness? I just miss movies that like, unabashedly capture zany happiness and the flutters of first love (and the sex scene is so good???). This movie is amazing and I adore it.

Bros. Look dude. I know Billy Eichner fucked up the marketing for this one. I know he's annoying as hell. Bros is objectively a romance novel movie lol. It's not as inclusive as it could/should be, I will agree with that always--but the romance arc is so good, and it is legit funny, and it has a FAILED GROVEL which we all know is one of my favorite things. And I do think it has a deeply true heart and soul and is really amazing.

Brown Sugar. PEAK Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan. It's a slow burn friends to lovers movie in which there is sooooo much sexual tension and so much angst and so much follow the fuck through. Also, Taye Diggs has one of the most magnificent line deliveries of all time with "riCHARD LAWson".

Imagine Me and You. The sapphic romcom we deserve. A bride falls in love at first sight with hot florist Lena Headey while walking down the aisle to marry her groom, as you do. What follows is a woman desperately trying not to cheat on her husband while experiencing extreme sexual tension with Lena Headey. Surprisingly soft and super romantic.

Lady Chatterley's Lover (2022). Required viewing for historical romance novel fans. Obviously based on a book, but again, that book is not a romance lol. The movie is. And it's one of the hottest movies in recent memory. Jack and Emma did the WORK. The kiss right before he goes down on her is maybe my favorite movie kiss of all time.

Obviously. Pride and Prejudice (2005). I shouldn't have to include this, but to be fucking clear lol. I will always maintain that while P&P (the novel) is a predecessor and a shaper of romance novels, it is not a romance novel. It is a contemporary novel with a lot of social commentary and a good love story. This movie? Makes it a full, sweeping romance with some of the best tension ever committed to screen.

Faraway. Omg, an amazing slept-on movie that is a rare romcom featuring a middle-aged woman! Basically, right when her mom dies she finds out her husband is having at min an emotional affair with his younger employee, and she also discovers her mom had a secret property on a Croatian island. She goes there, and is immediately courted by this younger real estate developer guy, but why is she constantly butting heads with the gruff guy who's been living in her mom's house????

Far and Away. Hate to recommend a Tom Cruise film, BUT it is is very romance novel, and it does star Nicole Kidman as well, and I hate to say it but those two did have bomb chemistry when they were married. The Irish accents are rough, but the plot is delightful because he's a poor guy who ends up getting roped into her scheme to leave for America (after his harebrained revenge scheme against her dad fails lol) and they live in a boarding house together pretending to be brother and sister... But like, everyone can tell they aren't because of their extremely obvious sexual tension lol.

When Harry Met Sally. Cliche, but it is a classic every romance lover should see. I'm not a big Billy Crystal fan, but his chemistry with Meg Ryan is MAGIC in this, and you really do get the sense of two people slooowly falling in love without even realizing it until suddenly they do all at once.

[mermaidsirennikita]

I'm actually a little worried over the fact that Bridgerton is gonna be the standard for period dramas nowadays, like, that's how period dramas are gonna look like (and I'm not even talking about the diversity part, I'd ve very happy with a show actually giving poc people the protagonism they deserve and not call it diversity and having the only White character to be the main character of the whole show) we have things like The Buccaneers and that horrible Emma film Netflix made and wonder if that's the quality we are gonna have now

Mr Malcom's List was amazing, I love everything about that film, it was so well done

Honestly? I'm not that worried about it. Period dramas have always been hit or miss for me, and I think that while big hits always have an impact on their genres, they often don't have as massive an impact as we may think--because shows that try to follow them underperform, tastes change, and other big hits happen.

An example I'd think of is The Tudors, which... I'm not gonna lie to you. Like it or not, is probably one of the most impactful, if not THE most impactful period dramas we've seen in the past 20 years. It revived the idea of the high end period piece soap for an American audience--and it reminded people that period pieces don't have to be Masterpiece, BBC, ITV, whatever. They could be super sexy and super dramatic and super bloody. You didn't have to be a stickler for history.

That show got a lot of viewers and a lot of buzz--and honestly, it went a long way towards launching the careers of Henry Cavill and Nat Dormer. Showtime tried to replicate it with The Borgias, but obviously had much less success there. HOWEVER, I always think it's a little unfair that GoT gets credit for making period pieces hot again when a) it's not a period piece and you can tell its core audience doesn't associate it with those because of how much they talk about the dragons and the ice zombies and b) The Tudors had already stoked that flame, and then the general Tudor frenzy grabbed onto it, which is why Starz has been able to get mileage out of its PGregs/Tudor-general shows for so long. THOUGH! I hope the flopitude of their last Elizabeth show means they slow up.

You see other mini trends too--Vikings was a big hit, and because of that you got The Last Kingdom and its ilk and Vikings: Valhalla. Vikings really was nothing like The Tudors, aside from the fact that it had somewhat explicit sex for its network (nothing like The Tudors, but still) and centered on a piece of shit who treated women like garbage and needed!!! Sons!!!!!!!! It walked through a door I think The Tudors left open, but it wasn't as clear a followup as The Borgias or the PGregs shows were.

So while I think Bton is obviously having an impact, as seen with Buccs, I'm not worried about its long term impact. I HOPE we see more diverse period dramas continue to be a thing, though I feel that really is less a thing we can thank Bton for (see: Mr. Malcolm's List) and more a trajectory that was brewing already. I mean, Shondaland had technically already done it with Still Star-Crossed, a show I didn't like... at all. But it was diverse.

I mean, shows like Mary and George on the horizon are nothing like Bton and hopefully (if they're good) will have an impact. I think we're slooooowly seeing the rise in more explicit, less woebegone period dramas (not movies) centering queer people. Gentleman Jack got cancelled, obviously, but I think it still made strides on that front, and Mary and George will obviously be very queer but also very much not a "sad queer man is closeted and sympathetic but doomed" narrative. We haven't seen many shows depict a man actually using his sexuality to get ahead the way women are often depicted doing in shows like The Tudors--and at his mother's urging, versus his father's as is usually the case with a narrative like Anne Boleyn's.

Things just come and go in waves. I mean, watch The Artful Dodger if you're super worried about more romantic period dramas, it was so fucking refreshing. I do kind of wonder if the romance in that show was upped BECAUSE Bton had success, but it's so much better than anything they offered, all the while focused on a period of history we never see in international TV (1800s Australia), doing a fun little revamp of a classic story (Oliver Twist), with a diverse cast and a focus on like... medicine? But medicine in a way that feels less procedural and more narrative? Medicine and THEFT? Medicine and Theft and Kissing? And putting a salve on her inner thigh and blowing on it in an alley? And sexual tension during medical exams? (The 30 seconds of Jack and Belle tensing while he sits behind her and listens to her heartbeat in her darkened room after she strips out of her dress is better than anything Bton offered in two seasons.)

And additionally--if books are any indication, I actually don't know that Bton is having that big an effect. Historical romances are going through a slump right now; the most Bton has done is push Julia Quinn's books and offer a "if you like Bton" comp for some books, which...

Yes, Buccs got renewed, but I don't know that it... has had much of an impact? I don't see it mentioned much on social media, which could be my circles, but I also don't see it mentioned much on sites that normally push streaming shows, so. I don't know. I've yet to see a Bton acolyte (and there have been few) actually make an impact and stick around the way some of the Tudor spawns did, or the way shows that followed Vikings did, for that matter.