Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema

The ultimate guide to contemporary romantic comedy, Falling in Love Again offers a timely new assessment of this hugely popular phenomenon.

Romantic comedy has long been a mainstay of the movies, from the classic screwballs of the 1930s, through to Woody Allen's ""nervous comedies"" of the 1970s and the current great Hollywood revival, with modern classics such as Maid in Manhattan and Lost in Translation. Yet rom-coms have often struggled to be taken seriously. This original anthology from an international collection of contributors updates, revisits and reflects on today's romantic comedies. It considers the films and issues that illustrate the breathtaking diversity of the genre, from the queer pleasures of Miss Congeniality and the rom-com persona of J-Lo and Bill Murray, to high school prom-coms and indie romantic comedies. It also explores the new male-centred romances like Wedding Crashers and looks further afield into the healing power of romantic love in the Bollywood hit Raja Hindustani.

These themes and more are covered in a book that takes the romantic comedy seriously, while also examining the many pleasures of this continually regenerating film form. Includes stills from some of the best known and well loved rom-coms of recent years, as well as a comprehensive filmography.

Stacey Abbott is Reader in Film and TV at Roehampton University. She is the author of Celluloid Vampires (University of Texas Press 2007), editor of Reading Angel and co-editor of Investigating Alias, both published by I.B.Tauris. She is also Series Editor of Tauris' Investigating Cult TV series.

Deborah Jermyn is Senior Lecturer in Film and TV at Roehampton University. She is the author of Crime Watching: Investigating Real Crime TV (I.B. Tauris, 2007) and Sex and the City (forthcoming in 2008).