Two Questions on Romances (Movie, Book, or TV, Doesn't Matter)

[Joe Washington]

(Yes, I've posted two similiar threads on this in the past but those were about will-they-won't-they dances and only revolved around TV shows. This goes a little beyond that)

Which way do you think a romance should go?
The way of gradually building up over a period of time from the first meeting to the first kiss to the first sex scene to what lies beyond that?
Or should it go the way of hitting the ground running with instant sexual tension abruptly leading to the first sex scene and then dealing with the aftermath of the encounter and how it affects the relationship this early in the game?

Which type of romance gets your juices flowing?
Lovey-doey, romantic, with moments of bliss and connection?
Messy, complicated, filled with conflict and passion?

Answer why for both or either of these questions and try to make your responses as detailed as possible.

 

[Too Much Fun]

The way of gradually building up over a period of time from the first meeting to the first kiss to the first sex scene to what lies beyond that?

Messy, complicated, filled with conflict and passion?

Those are the kinds I prefer. I have really high standards for romance in fiction. A lot of Hollywood love stories disappoint me because they don't show how people fall in love convincingly. We're just supposed to accept that it happened, even if it's never adequately or plausibly shown or explained.

My favourite love stories are the ones that give a lot of screen time to letting us watch the characters get to know each other, so that we get to understand exactly what it is about one another they come to appreciate, and I'm especially grateful when we see conflicts between them that arise out of differences in beliefs, personality, etc. rather than contrived gimmicks like miscommunication leading to jealousy, cheating, etc. as writers have people say the wrong thing or neglect to say one simple thing that needed to be said to avoid confusion (what Ebert calls 'The Idiot Plot').

Some of my favourite romance movies are "Say Anything...", "Before Sunrise", "The Sure Thing", and "Annie Hall". Something they all have in common is that they give the characters a lot of screentime to converse so that we can understand why they both get along, why they have personality clashes, and why they're great for one another despite the many ways that they're different.

Roger Ebert summed up my preference for romance movies when he talked about the kiss in "The Sure Thing". He said it meant more than any kiss in any movie has meant in a long time because it was built up so well with many scenes of the characters getting to know each other. That's a big reason why I think why it works so well by my standards of what makes a movie romance great.

Compare that to a movie like "Serendipity" (which I consider one of the worst 'love stories' of all time) where the two main characters meet at the beginning of the movie (in a horribly contrived scenario where it's totally unconvincing that they could possibly fall in love based on it), spend the rest of the movie in real relationships with other people (who at least aren't portrayed as evil caricatures) then ditch their partners for each other at the end, all based on the 'passion' of their one, unconvincing first date. Absolutely atrocious.

 

[Joe Washington]

I've seen "Annie Hall" but I saw only a part of "Say Anything...", none of "The Sure Thing", and I've never got the time to sit down and watch "Before Sunrise."