20 years since 'Love Actually,' rom-coms are still blurring the line between sweet

A couple leaning in to kiss each other by the water.

By Lorena O’Neil

April 21, 2023 10 AM PT

Of the ingredients that define the romantic comedy, none is more rewarded — by audiences or potential paramours — than the grand gesture. Think singing and dancing down high-school stadium bleachers, or building your teenage sweetheart’s dream house even though you haven’t spoken in decades. Do it right and your best friend, who has suddenly decided she’s in love with you, might just show up to sabotage your wedding.

But what about another common rom-com trope, one that often goes hand in hand with the grand gesture: the pursuer so persistent he could be mistaken for a stalker?

Romantic comedies often flirt with the thin line between ardent and alarming, and Apple TV+’s new romantic actioner “Ghosted” plays with this premise knowingly. In the film, premiering Friday, Cole, played by Chris Evans, has a magical first date with Sadie, played by Ana de Armas. When Cole’s subsequent texts and emojis to Sadie go unanswered, his mother urges him to make a move by following Sadie to London and showing up on her work trip. (His sister, a voice of reason, calls out his clingy behavior, but she’s ignored.)

After Cole takes his unannounced trip across the pond, he’s promptly kidnapped; it turns out Sadie is a CIA agent and he walked right into one of her missions. Cole and Sadie continue to suffer the dangerous (but humorous) consequences of his grand gesture for the remainder of the movie.

So, does this mean “Ghosted” is using rom-com tropes or subverting them? Both.

A man and a woman with a gun crouching beside a rock.

Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick tell The Times that, as with their previous films “Deadpool” and “Zombieland,” they wanted to write a movie where they were at once making fun of a genre and embracing it. They knew the premise of Cole following Sadie to London would be a tough line to walk, and they were cognizant of it when writing the script. Reese and Wernick said it was crucial that multiple characters call out Cole’s “outrageous” behavior and that his decision to follow her would blow up in his face.

Reese said it was important not to lend credence to the stories an uncle might tell you about putting in extra effort and “wearing her down” until a prospective partner relents. He said they didn’t want Sadie’s character to be swept off her feet by Cole’s surprise arrival and immediately fall in love.

“In fact, it goes quite the opposite direction [...] it couldn’t fail more spectacularly for him,” says Reese.

“You stalkered your way across the ocean to find me,” Sadie shouts at Cole as she expertly drives a bus in reverse while shooting at kidnappers.

“Don’t use stalker as a verb,” says Cole, clinging uselessly onto a handrail. “And it was a romantic gesture!”

For Evans, the key to making Cole come across as a charming but naive romantic was capturing his sincerity. “Sometimes the line between stalkerish and really sweet is blurry, it’s tough to tell,” the actor said. “He’s clearly a hopeless romantic. He’s had a past of being potentially a little clingy, it’s his nature. [But] fundamentally he’s not a stalkerish guy.”

Director Dexter Fletcher says he sees Evans’ character as a “hero of romance” and de Armas as a “hero of action.” Sadie, he says, doesn’t let Cole get away with his clinginess and she “is very capable of handling someone who’s showing unwanted attention.”

“Of course, we understood, there is a fine line,” said Fletcher. He said they were mindful not to create a character who is in “Fatal Attraction” territory, aided by Evans’ vulnerable performance. “There’s an inherent sweetness to Chris,” Wernick agreed. “Had, for example, Paul Dano played the part, it would have been a different movie.”

Writer-director Richard Curtis, whose film “Love Actually” has sparked consistent conversation about the trope since it premiered 20 years ago, has said much the same about a character, Mark (Andrew Lincoln), who is infatuated with his best friend’s wife, Juliet (Keira Knightley). Juliet, to whom Mark later professes his love in a famous scene involving cue cards, first understands his true feelings when she watches her wedding video, in which Mark has filmed her nuptials as a series of close-ups on her face, Juliet’s husband mostly cropped out.

A man holds a cue card reading "TO ME YOU ARE PERFECT" at a woman's front door.

“Retroactively, I’m aware that Andrew’s role was on the edge,” Curtis has said. “But I think because Andrew was so openhearted and guileless, we knew we’d get away with it.” (For his part, Lincoln has copped to being nervous about the role, telling Entertainment Weekly he kept asking Curtis, “Are you sure I’m not going to come off as a creepy stalker?”)

So what are the differences between a film whose self-awareness attempts to defuse problematic behavior and one that inspired a two-decade discourse about it? Consent — and consequences.

“Ghosted” and “Love Actually” both rely on the sweetness of the character and the charisma of the performer, but they end at different places: For Cole, there are repercussions. (Mark’s only consequence is not ending up with Juliet, which is hardly a consequence, as she owes him exactly nothing. Not even the pity kiss she gives him.)

There is a moment in “Ghosted” too when Cole definitively crosses a boundary: He takes a selfie with a sleeping Sadie. When asked about the line between creepy and romantic, it’s the first example de Armas and Evans bring up.

“It’s just not OK,” de Armas said, laughing as Evans added, “Come on, Cole, there’s just no excuse for that.”

The screenwriters do not let Cole off the hook for the nonconsensual cuddle photo, and without spoiling too much, it puts the protagonists’ lives in jeopardy. After Sadie ends up injured in the fallout, Cole apologizes for taking the photo. (In “Love Actually,” Mark makes an awkward joke about how Juliet shouldn’t show the wedding video around because it needs editing, and the voyeuristic tape isn’t further addressed.)

Why does the persistence trope, well, persist? The “Ghosted” screenwriters think it’s because rom-coms take relatable experiences and blow them up to an exaggerated level, whether it’s a heavenly first date that neither person wants to end or finding a connection and then getting unexpectedly ghosted. As Reese pointed out, most people, if they’ve dated long enough, have felt deeply connected to someone who didn’t reciprocate and been irritated by someone’s clinginess.

“Falling in love for someone in an immediate fashion on an early date is one of the great experiences in life,” says Reese. “It was important for this movie that we captured it and made people understand someone literally crossing the Atlantic Ocean to chase somebody down.”

“It’s the kind of person that drives you crazy but you also can’t get enough of them. I think that’s something a lot of people can relate to,” echoed Evans.

But 20 years after “Love Actually,” the fact remains that audiences still accept, even celebrate, such persistence: Romance fans want chemistry between leads, relatable emotional challenges, funny, charismatic banter and the familiar comfort of a satisfying ending — even if an old-fashioned convention or two sneaks in along the way. In turn, even filmmakers ready to address the creepy aspects of the trope can end up rewarding it.

“I really love that moment in the movie when they pull that picture out and [Cole’s] just so busted in such a public way,” said Evans. “It’s so cringy, I love it.”

But kidnapped, busted and cringy, he still ends up with the woman who ghosted him. And we’re rooting for them the whole time.