In a changing world, meet-cute rom-coms persist

Twice a year – at Christmas and Valentine time – TV has a romantic-comedy immersion.
Some elements persist in most films. “There’s nothing better than a meet-cute in a rom-com,” said Jonah Feingold, writer-director of “At Midnight,” which has just arrived on Paramount+.
Tben there’s the meet-angry. As Monica Barbaro (shown here with “At Midnight” star Diego Boneta) put it: “We love rom-coms where two characters do not like each other at first …. It’s almost like they are fighting their feelings.”
Occasionally, a rom-com will ignore this. “Your Place or Mine,” Netflix’s Valentine-week arrival, cleverly keeps Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher on opposite coasts for virtually the entire film.
But most follow the tradition. “At Midnight” has the meet-cute involve some barely concealed nudity, followed by quick anger. It also follows two other rules; a rom-com should have:
— Attractive stars. In this case, Barbaro, 33, – a dancer-turned-actress with Mexican and Italian roots – is with Diego Boneta, 32, a Mexican native who has become a movie star in two languages.
— Gorgeous settings. Lately, Hallmark and Lifetime have tweaked their usual formula, which is sort of “50 shades of Vancouver.” They’ve set rom-coms in New Orleans and Nashville, at Graceland and Radio City Music Hall and national parks. Now comes something bigger.
“It’s a love letter to Mexico, which I think is very cool,” Boneta said. “I haven’t seen a Hollywood rom-com shot in Mexico or Mexico City.”
Much of it was shot in the Riviera Maya region of the Yucatan Peninsula, with “the clearest water you’ll ever see,” Barbaro said. “It’s very humid and rain-foresty. It’s beautiful.”
But there was also a week in Mexico City. She’d been there before, visiting her grandmother, but being there with Boneta was a fresh experience, she said. “You go to the best of the best restaurants. They have no tables and they are like, ‘But Diego, come on in.’”
He’d been a teen star in Mexico, before going to Hollywood for TV (recurring roles in “Pretty Little Liars,” “90210,” etc.) and, at 21, a flashy rock-star role in the movie musical “Rock of Ages.”
More work followed, including regular roles in “Scream Queens” and “Underemployed,” before he returned to Mexico to star in a TV series based on the life of music superstar Luis Miguel.
“I hadn’t done anything in Spanish in 10 years …. Acting in Spanish was a bit different,” he said. “And since then, my dream has been to kind of marry both worlds.”
He formed a production company, liked Feingold’s first film (a low-budgeter called “Dating & New York”) and began pushing the idea of a Hollywood-style rom-com filmed in Mexico. “An unnamed Paramount exec told me, ‘Diego, you can’t go to Mexico and just have tequila every day with your best friends. And that’s exactly what we did.”
Now Paramount+ has it as a key part of its “Peak Romance” cluster, alongside romantic films old (“Grease,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Shakespeare in Love”) and new (“Licorice Pizza,” “The Lost City”).
Disney+ has its own collection, with “Rosaline” (Kaitlyn Dever as Juliet’s cousin) through Feb. 15, alongside classics, including “Enchanted,” “Beauty and the Beast” and the “Cinderella” musical. And Netflix has its own films, led by “Your Place or Mine,” which starts slowly and ends big.
All over the streaming world, it seems pretty people are falling in love. Many of them to meet cute or meet angry.