I like watching movies, not just for entertainment value but to discover new storytelling techniques. Movies are often innovative in presenting character, or in twisting the plot, or simply in terms of presenting information. My husband has been haunting the Foreign Films section lately, and has made some really good discoveries. His most recent find was a French film called MODERN LOVE.

Yup. Subtitles.

What an interesting movie. A bit contrived, but I really liked it. It’s structured as a romantic comedy, which follows several couples on their amorous adventures in present-day Paris. One of the guys is a screenwriter, and it turns out – this isn’t a spoiler if you’ve read the advertising copy – that the third couple whose romance is portrayed in this movie is actually segments of the movie he wrote. (That would be the one with the spontaneous singing, and tap dance numbers.) So, this is clever in terms of structure – and there are fun things like one couple looking for music and pulling out a cd which is the soundtrack for the movie that you’re watching – but it gets even better.

Because the character’s screenplay, which a romantic comedy, uses many tropes of romantic comedy and romance novels. Aha! Not only do those tropes look a bit silly in comparison to real life, but often the same trope gets tried out in the “real life” segments – it works in the movie, just as it always does in movies and romance novels, but fails spectacularly in the real life example(s).

**SPOILER ALERT**

For example, the Cinderella moment, when the guy somehow ensures that the woman he loves has the opportunity to be remade as a beauty, is a familiar element in romance novels and romantic comedies. It usually symbolizes the heroine’s inner beauty being loosed etc etc. Here, in the movie version, the heroine is given the full spa and wardrobe treatment for a fabulous romantic dinner, which launches the couple’s relationship in true fairy tale style. In the real life version, the guy meets his ex in the store where he takes his current lady shopping, only to be surprised by the realization that he still loves his ex-girlfriend. His current girlfriend picks that up, as well, and no spoiler that the interval ends badly.

In a way, the movie is tongue-in-cheek about these tropes and patterns. But in another, it honours their core truth – because both the movie and the real life versions get their HEA. If you’re interested in structure and in writing romance, look for this movie. It’s well worth enduring the subtitles.