Rom Coms: a Cure for Quarantine Blues

I’m a sucker for sentimentality, and I’ll be the first to admit that when school was shut down due to the COVID-19 outbreak, I dwelled more on the potential cancellation of graduation than on the possibility of hospital overflow. No, I’m not proud of my initial response, but I can’t help my nostalgic instincts.

So, preparing to be stuck alone in my house with my emotions for at least a month, there was only one thing that I had faith could balance out my sadness: I rallied the troops and assembled a disturbingly comprehensive list of romantic comedies. With help from my family, friends and basically anyone who saw me on the verge of tears, I spent what were perhaps my last days of high school compiling the ultimate “Rom Coms for Quarantine” list, complete with 30 films to pull me through the next few weeks, months or years.

If you’re wondering why you should care that I can barely hold myself together without the help of oversimplified love stories and outdated jokes, allow me to shed some light, and perhaps persuade you to join me in this venture.

During a time of uncertainty, what better to make you smile than predictable endings, complete with the inevitably sappy weddings which are all but gone in the age of coronavirus? When I am lamenting the death of my senior traditions, Hugh Grant is there to remind me of the ceremonies and milestones that might still lie ahead. If I can’t wear a white dress in May, at least I can pray that Meg Ryan gets to, on screen. Plus, it’s a relief to see Tom Hanks gallivanting through Seattle and New York in good health, since neither Hanks, Seattle nor NYC have been spared from our current state of crisis.

I can’t change the fact that the world seems to be spiraling towards a chaotic downfall. However, even what feels like an apocalypse can’t take away what the film gods granted us back when love interests were allowed to be within six feet of one another. So for now, I highly suggest you take a peek at the list I am so generously providing to the UV’s vast readership below.

Although I never imagined I’d be sharing an ever so romantic quotation with my entire school, I’d like to leave you with one that I find quite relevant in our current predicament. As Harry so passionately pronounced to Sally in the Nora Ephron classic, “when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” Yes, we will be together again at some point or another. And even though it’s not as soon as we’d like, hopefully we’ll be all the more grateful for each other when that day comes.

In the meantime, please take your pick of the movies below, and call me on Zoom if you similarly have nothing better to do than debrief 30-year-old movies with a fellow virtual student. Desperate boredom calls for desperate measures.

Rom Coms for Quarantine (in the order that they were remembered and/or recommended)

Disclaimer: I can’t vouch for all of the following movies, as many of them I have yet to watch (or haven’t watched in many years). I can’t even promise that all the ones I’ve watched are high-quality films; however, they’re entertaining, at the very least.