The rise of the anti-romcom: have we all become too cynical for a real love story?

A hazy New York skyline. A dreamy, jazzy score. A floppy haired Brit in chunky glasses with a lopsided grin (Charlie, played by Robert Pattinson) spies a beautiful American (Emma, played by Zendaya) reading in a coffee shop. It’s the perfect meet cute — you can almost see the shadows of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts on the screen. But here is where the romance and comedy end and the drama with a capital D begins. Because Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama is proud to be firmly, resolutely anti-romcom.

After the awkward, stammering meet cute, the string of joyful dates, the picturesque proposal, this perfect little love story takes a turn. In case you haven’t heard, The Drama hinges around a major plot twist — the kind of plot twist designed to get the entire internet locked in fierce ethical debate. I won’t spoil it, but Emma has a big, dark secret — and it’s just about as aggressively shocking and morally confronting as it could be. Suddenly, after spending all of this time rooting for our two romantic leads, we find ourselves watching on in horror (and a bit of gawking, jaw-dropped delight) as their wedding plans descend into unhinged emotional chaos.

This bold dismantling of the classic romcom is shocking — that is, if it would be shocking if wasn’t already being done left, right and centre. Because it seems to me that just about every romantic comedy these days is staunchly anti romance. In fact, the general consensus seems to be that setting up the perfect, formulaic romcom then blasting it into a million razor sharp pieces is what audiences everywhere are crying out for.

Courtesy Everett Collection

Along with The Drama, we have Splitsville, an American “anti-romcom” that landed in UK cinemas last week. Penned by the film’s stars Michael Angela Covino (who also directs) and Kyle Marvin, the film follows two ambivalent, half-hearted couples — one teetering on the edge of divorce (Covino and Adria Arjona), one in an open marriage as a pre-emptive measure (Marvin and Dakota Johnson). Because apparently, in the modern world, love and commitment aren’t real and cheating is an inevitable conclusion to our perfunctory relationships. It’s a depressing premise. After some wife and husband swapping, some open relationship experimentation and more than a few squabbles, the couples end up right back where they started — with their original partners and still just as emotionally tepid.

Then there’s Oh, Hi, Sophie Brooks’ 2025 not-so-romcom starring Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman as a couple who take a romantic getaway that spirals into a hostage situation as Gordon’s Iris ties up Lerman’s Isaac in a desperate ultimatum to get him to commit already.

And there’s more. Charli XCX is set to star in self-described anti-romcom Erupcja this year, a film that sees her blowing up her relationship with soon-to-be fiancé, Rob (Will Madden) while stuck in Warsaw, Poland. Netflix’s Vladimir, like The Drama, had all the familiar romcom tropes and, like Oh, Hi! got very dark when Rachel Weisz’s character ended up tying up her love interest. Just this week, Disney+ dropped its first look at Alice and Steve, another self-described “anti-romcom”, this one about besties whose relationship implodes when he stars dating her daughter.