Romantic comedies are a guilty pleasure for many of us. They’re pleasurable because they involve fanciful, bizarre and downright unbelievable stories about two unlikely characters finding love. Equal parts laughter, awkwardness and deep affection, these movies have a special power to light up the pleasure centers in our brains. (Sometimes, even for us guys … if we’re willing to tell the truth.)
But then there’s that guilty part. This particular genre often—if not almost always—tosses people who’ve not yet made a lifelong marital commitment to each other in bed together. These films are rarely graphic in this department, but dirty jokes, winking double entendres and sexual situations are part and parcel of most romcoms. And when we watch them as Christians, these moments can make us feel pretty uncomfortable. We may or may not choose to stop watching, but we might well think something like, Well, we could have done without that.
That longwinded and opinion-y preamble brings us to our Plugged In Pick for movies this month: Finding You. This delightful romcom isn’t completely squeaky clean: We do get a bit of language and some innuendo about a movie star’s bad reputation as a ladies’ man. That said, this PG-rated story about a young woman and a celebrity finding love plays against genre type by avoiding the kinds of intimate situations I mentioned above.
On top of that, the You in the title is as much about these two characters learning important things about themselves is it is about them finding each other. (And if you watch this film, you’ll want to “find” Paul Asay’s interview with star Rose Reid, too.)
All of that makes for a rare treat indeed: a romcom that won’t make you wince or blush. And that’s the kind of film in this category we’d love to see more of.
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