Director Elizabeth Sankey reflects on her own youthful enthusiasm for romantic comedies, while delving into the genre’s recurring conservative narratives with questions like, “where are all the lesbian and transgender characters?” and “why are career women portrayed so negatively?”

Using a large number of clips from well-known and classic films as well as testimony from other cinephiles, Sankey delivers a celebration of the rom-com while unpicking its notions of perfection and the ideal. A feminist film for film lovers, the film intelligently engages with ideas of gender, sexuality, race and class representation in one of the world’s most-watched genres.