by Fiona Underhill, Staff Writer

The term “slow burn romance” usually conjures up images from literary and period romances – Heathcliff still yearning for Cathy even after her death in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights or Anne Elliot still pining for Captain Wentworth after an 8-year separation in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. However, the slow burn romance can be used well in the modern rom-com, particularly in my favorite romance trope: “friends to lovers.” Austen was an early proponent of this trope in her most rom-com-like book, Emma. While “enemies to lovers” is the more popular trope, especially in rom coms, “friends to lovers” is the more satisfying arc and is the basis of the undisputed best rom com of all time, When Harry Met Sally (1989). It’s understandable that the decline of the rom-com has been much discussed over the last 10-20 years, but the death of the rom-com has been greatly exaggerated–with The Lost City (2022), Ticket to Paradise (2022), and very recently Anyone but You (2023) all crossing the $100 million milestone at the box office. 

There have been some excellent under-the-radar rom coms released within the last decade that use the Friends to Lovers trope brilliantly, and I’m here – my dear readers – to recommend some of the best. Firstly, I want to go back ten years and recommend the wonderful Toronto-set film What If (2013) starring Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver (before Star Wars fame and Oscar nominations), and Mackenzie Davis – this is definitely one to catch up with if you haven’t seen it. Radcliffe’s Wallace quickly slips into the friend zone with Kazan’s artist/animator Chantry (who has a boyfriend), but harbors deeper feelings for her. Over the course of around a year, they become closer and I’m sure you can guess where things head.

But with human capybara Glen Powell currently riding high at the box office with Sydney Sweeney in the Enemies to Lovers rom com Anyone but You, we should be reminded that he also starred in another brilliant rom com in 2018 – the Netflix movie Set It Up, with Zoe Deutch. While Netflix certainly deserves to be criticized for many things, it is a good place to find romance. It’s given us To All the Boys…, Bridgerton and so much more. It’s a good place to find YA romance, international romance, and plenty of lower-budget, independent romantic films that few have heard of, but are worth seeking out for us romance lovers. Netflix’s Set it Up blends Enemies to Lovers with Friends to Lovers – Powell’s Charlie and Deutch’s Harper are two overworked assistants to high-powered business people played by Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs. They start as rivals, but band together to try to get their bosses to hook up, and become friends along the way. The film is powered by Powell and Deutch’s immense charm and charisma, and is a pleasure to watch unfold.

In 2019, we got a film that more strictly adheres to the “friends to lovers” trope and is probably the least-known of the films I’m recommending. Plus One (available on Hulu in the US) stars Jack Quaid and Maya Erskine as two people who have been friends for around a decade by the time we meet them. One of the best rom-com conceits comes into play: the classic “we have a series of events coming up (in this case weddings) and need dates to them all, let’s just agree to go together.” A fun Netflix movie that uses the same conceit is Holidate (2020), which I also recommend. If you only know Erskine from PEN15, you may be wondering if she’s a good fit for the Mr & Mrs Smith series on Prime Video, but Plus One is a good indicator that it’s going to work. The extremely charming Quaid and Erskine attend a series of weddings, making fun of everyone with the brilliantly witty dialogue by Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer. The structure doesn’t follow a typical rom-com storyline, as they sleep together at the half-way point, and we then see them as a couple for a good portion of the film. Unusually, this part works just as well, if not even better than the first half. Do yourself a favor and watch this little underseen gem, and you will come away as a fan of both Quaid and Erskine–I guarantee it.

Another film that stretches the definition of “friends to lovers” slightly (but I love it, so I’m recommending it anyway) is 2020’s The Broken Hearts Gallery written and directed by Natalie Krinsky (available on Starz in the US). Don’t be put off by the twee title, as I nearly was. Again, this one rises and falls on the charms of the central pair–especially the woman at the center, in this case, the effervescent Geraldine Viswanathan. Here, she’s paired with Dacre Montgomery (best-known for Stranger Things), in which Viswanathan’s Lucy starts an exhibition in which she encourages people to bring significant items from past relationships that they’ve been holding onto, so they can let go and move on. The venue for the exhibition is the not-yet-opened boutique hotel that Montgomery’s Nick is renovating. They become friends, and slowly start to open up and trust one another. This film has a wonderful first kiss/sleeping together scene, in which Nick reveals a hidden “hipster Narnia” room in his bougie hotel, but goddammit, it works and is romantic as hell! It even has a “but we’re friends….what if we’re more than friends?” line, so it actually totally fits the trope! Bonus, Bernadette Peters!

And finally, we come to perhaps the best of the bunch–Max Barbakow’s Palm Springs, which was a buzzy title from the 2020 Sundance Festival and can now be found on Hulu. The comedy stars Andy Samberg as Nyles and Cristin Milioti as Sarah, a pair who become trapped in a time loop together at a Palm Springs wedding. Like Viswanathan and Erskine, Milioti is really the stand out here, and I’ve become such a fan since watching this film and followed her career since (I also recommend the underseen TV shows Made for Love and The Resort). The reason Palm Springs works so well as a “friends to lovers” story is that we don’t know how long Nyles and Sarah are trapped together in the time loop–it could potentially be years before Sarah turns to Nyles and finally says “let’s just get it other with” and they have sex in a tent, after watching dinosaurs traverse the desert (it’s a long story). 

Palm Springs has one of my favorite endings of any movie of the last few years (maybe don’t read this paragraph if you want to stay spoiler free). Sarah decides that the only way to escape the time loop is to blow herself up in the cave where she initially became trapped, and Nyles does a classic “speedy rush to the airport,” but in this case, it’s to the cave where she’s going to “blow up and die.” It’s set to the brilliant soundtrack title “Race to the Cave” by Cornbread Compton and then segues into “Cloudbusting” by Kate Bush – two absolutely perfect tracks to end this great movie on. Nyles gets to make a big speech (which is a grammatical nightmare) but includes the lines; “you’re my favorite person that I’ve ever met” and “we’re already sick of each other – it’s the best”–le sigh. 

So, if you’re a fan of slow burn romance and the “friends to lovers” romantic trope, there are good recent examples of this trope–they’re maybe just harder to find these days. But if the success of Anyone but You tells us anything, it's that audiences are crying out for new rom-coms, especially in the post-award season months of January and February. Release more of them, you cowards!