Contrived Romantic Encounters: The "meet Cute"
One of the conventions of romantic comedy films is the funny parts and contrived encounter of two potential romantic partners in unusual or comic circumstances, which film critics such as Roger Ebert or the Associated Press' Christy Lemire have called a "meet-cute" situation. During a "meet-cute", scriptwriters often create a humorous sense of awkwardness between the two potential partners by depicting an initial clash of personalities or beliefs, an embarrassing situation, or by introducing a comical misunderstanding or mistaken identity situation. Sometimes the term is used without a hyphen (a "meet cute"), or as a verb ("to meet cute").
Roger Ebert describes the "concept of a Meet Cute" as "when boy meets girl in a cute way." As an example, he cites "The Meet Cute in Lost and Found has Jackson and Segal running their cars into each other in Switzerland. Once recovered, they Meet Cute again when they run into each other while on skis. Eventually,... they fall in love."
In many romantic comedies, the potential couple comprises polar opposites, two people of different temperaments, situations, social statuses, or all three (It Happened One Night), who would not meet or talk under normal circumstances, and the meet cute's contrived situation provides the opportunity for these two people to meet.
Read more about this topic: Romantic Comedy Film
Famous quotes containing the words contrived, romantic, meet and/or cute:
“I honor your art, because you contrived it, but it only helps those who think the way you do. You may give a sick man your best potion but he’ll die if he thinks it’s poison.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“What Romantic terminology called genius or talent or inspiration is nothing other than finding the right road empirically, following one’s nose, taking shortcuts.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)
“By my troth, this is the old fashion. You two never meet but you fall to some discord.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I’m not ugly. I’m cute as hell.”
—Christine Craft (b. c. 1944)