The Best Romantic Films of 2021

There's always one complaint or the other as far as romantic movies are concerned. Yesterday, they were boring because they didn't have too much of a conflict. Today, they don't work because of being too detached and sentimental. With every phase cinématographique, the hill seems harder to climb. 

However, every once in a while comes an engaging piece of film that shatters a part of our regular assumptions from the genre offerings. Mostly, this is all the romance cinema was about this year- altering the worn-out fabric with delectable new patterns. Here are the eight best romantic films that I saw this year. 

Special Mention- Madhyantar (Ankahi Kahaniyaan)

In a mediocre (but slightly different) anthology about Mumbai as a city and a state of mind constantly flowing like a breeze, Abhishek Chaubey's wonderful short film Madhyantar was not just a solid step out of the well-established comfort zone, but also a truly charming ode to the romances of yore. An adaptation of a Kannada short story of the same name, Madhyantar takes an unsuspecting look at class disparities and breaking free from societal restrictions. 

The simplicity of the short is never at odds with its consistent sharpness. The writing is subtle and it never gets affected by the sensational and formulaic treatment superimposed to the same themes by bigger directorial ventures. Rinku Rajguru and Delzad Hiwale prove themselves as fine actors, never reliant on the film's sparse soundscape or visual language. It also carries one of the most memorable ending scenes of cinema this year. 

8. The World To Come 

There's almost a sureness to the fact that Kelly Reichardt's deeply disarming First Cow is the greatest American frontier romance, its unoccupied silence being almost iconic in form. The World To Come, rest assured, doesn't change that. However, Mona Fastvold's female gaze has such empathy and nuance to it that it singularly lifts the film from its cold, straightforward narrative behaviour. Starring Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston as two nineteenth century women who fall for each other in the way of forging a connection, the film is written tightly enough so as to make us feel for these women and get us to admire the extraordinary leading cast. 

The World to Come is one of the most underrated films of the year. Its minimalistic aesthetics are so detached from the viewer that the acceptance of a romance later on seems like a hardwired act. However, Fastvold never approaches her material that way. She keeps the things going at their own flow, which results in some fantastic sentimental literature out of the forbidden relationship between protagonists Abigail and Tallie. I also liked how the film tells a feminist story by basically drifting away from the regular feminist set-up of patriarchal authority and affection as an instrument of revolt. Instead, it has delicate things to say about toxic relationships, relevant even to our times. 

7. Here and There 

2021 saw only the rise and rise of the Corona romantic-comedy: regular meet-cutes leading to chaotic situations and comforting stories set around our discomforting times. Jaime P. Habac Jr.'s Filipino COVID-19 romantic comedy is built of every generic beat you can think of. However, it doesn't really use Coronavirus, social distancing and stay-at-home as accessories to drive the story away from convention. 

Instead, this is a delightfully organic and charming film that has a clarity of approach to shine through. While the humour is injected in healthy doses, the film in unafraid of pushing its characters towards the nooks of hard truth. It has mushiness and fuzz all in excess, but there's never for once the feeling of gluttony setting in, mostly because the acting is organic and the writing itself is gripping enough to have you hooked. 

6. 7 Days

Roshan Sethi's witty directorial debut, 7 Days comes from the production canon of brothers Jay and Mark Duplass. And it has certainly got the kind of humorous intellect that we've come to expect from the house! An NRI romantic-comedy about a couple stuck in lockdown because of their pre-marriage meeting date, the film follows Ravi and Rita as their contrasting personalities result in utter chaos. 

It's just as cliché as it sounds, if not more. In fact, the film boasts of some utterly masala Bollywood ingredients. However, the film itself is almost subversive and completely smart about it. The film majorly benefits from the charming performances delivered by Karan Soni and Geraldine Vishwanathan, who exceptionally live up to making the otherwise familiar romance feel fresh and pleasant. The comedic bits? are hilarious. 

5. I'm Your Man 

Germany's official entry to the Academy Awards, Maria Schrader's I'm Your Man is one of the most innovative and interesting love stories to have graced the silver screens in a long time. A futuristic romance where a woman's live-in date is a handsome 'robot', the film isn't merely satisfied by the hyper-conceptual entity in which it exists. Thus, even when playing out with real simplicity and bleached out of any risk, Schrader's work feels provocative and original, and ready to tell risky stories as well. 

Although the otherwise feel-good writing is almost as predictable as that one rom-com which released last week, the complexity of its romance and the memorable form of its characters elevate the experience and make it immersive. And while we're made to care for Alma because of her confident presence as a wise and mature real-world character coping with an emptiness in her life, Dan Stevens takes the cake with his wonderful charisma as the hero Tom. 

4. The Wanting Mare 

Nicholas Ashe Bateman's The Wanting Mare is the most visually stunning film of the year. It's a challenging cinema experience- you need to wholly submit to the film's graphical nature and be forgiving for the otherwise wafer-thin plot. Perhaps it's this painstakingly crafted atmosphere of the film that got slightly dismissive of its audience and hence, didn't work as brillinatly as it should have. 

However, this labour of love culminating five years of intense hard-work, does stand out because of its incredibly satisfying visual language. The plot might be read as a feminist fantasy, but it also makes for a fantastic romance- the allure of a generational love story hasn't been so consuming and fetching in a long time. At that, because of the acting and perhaps the visuals to a greater degree, it becomes very memorable. 

3. Bergman Island 

Mia-Hansen Løve's lightness of approach comes so far from pretense, that it almost seems auteuristic and novel for her art. Her work in Bergman Island succeeds in becoming balmy and exceptionally meditative, but it's also cleverly meta. Starring Vicky Krieps in one of her best performances as the wife in the married Anglo-German filmmaking couple who are touring the Swedish realm of Ingmar Bergman in Fårö, the film is so ruminative and lingering that even your thoughts will give you a state of mindlessness. 

Injecting a compelling and vivacious story within a story, Bergman Island cross-examines a marriage in shambles through a sublime swerve of honest drama. This, then, is a film where romance comes inherent to the nature- whether it's heavy-duty or slight. It's one of the most tender, personal films of the year and a quasi-ode to the cinematic master it alludes to. 

2. The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 

J-Auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi's The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is a film which can be read manifold- I sometimes feel as if I've spoken too much about it, and yet, at times, it never feels enough. It's such a precisely human and delicate film that the complexities are hidden under plain sight. It might be so because it was a groundwork exercised under the doom of a virus's restrictions- the film patched up in between the making of the bigger, more layered Drive My Car. 

However, the pedestal and authority enjoyed by the film's feminine entity is what makes the 'romance' part really work. Love is perhaps the only thing in the anthology which isn't really operated by the circular wheel of life with all its fortunes, misfortunes, fantasies and realities. Love, in its all physical and erotic space- is just one of the few means of existence and interaction, much like how it works in the real world devoid of magic. The love triangle in the first story was approached with such particular fervency that its otherwise very real acceptance seemed hard on the screen. Love attaches one way and detaches the other way, and perhaps only that makes it so strange. 

1. The Worst Person in the World 

A fabulist and deeply personal look at the life of a woman, Norwegian master Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World is, not so incidentally, also the most unadulterated of this year's romances. A gentle breeze of intelligent development sways the film's atmosphere even when it is at its ugliest. As the twelve-chapter ballad (in the fashion of a true romantic from yore) follows Julie through four dramatic years in her life as she gradually comes of age, we're slowly made to wrap our head around an instant classic of sorts. 

Starring Renate Reinsve in one of the year's finest performances, and with two wonderfully enacted men at the womb of her lovelorn crux, the film cruises through its vital points with such intimacy that it's almost deceptively smart about it. Props must be given though to the effortlessly extraordinary writing pulled off by Eskil Vogt- fabricating nuance with utmost commitment to the texture and staging even the most layered moments with tenderness.