Romance films often explore themes of love at first sight and forbidden love. They serve as fantasies for viewers and involve affectionate romantic relationships. Romance films face obstacles like family disapproval. Chick flicks target women and contain themes of love and dating. Subgenres include romantic dramas about love overcoming obstacles and comedies where humor helps true love succeed. Breakfast at Tiffany's is considered an early chick flick due to its themes of loneliness and materialism. Safe Haven was a financially successful 2013 adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel that was panned by critics.

1. Genre Analysis 3
Romance

2. Romance Conventions
• Romantic films often explore the essential themes of love at first
sight, young with older love, unrequited love, obsessive love,
spiritual love, forbidden love/romance, platonic love, sexual and
passionate love.
• Romantic films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers,
especially if the two people finally overcome their difficulties,
declare their love, and experience life "happily ever after", implied
by a reunion and final kiss.
• The films involve the affectionate romantic involvement of the main
characters and the journey that their genuinely strong, true and pure
romantic love takes them through dating, courtship or marriage.
Romance films make the romantic love story or the search for strong
and pure love and romance the main plot focus.
• Occasionally, romance lovers face obstacles such as finances, physical
illness, various forms of discrimination, psychological restraints or
family that threaten to break their union of love.

3. “Chick Flicks”
• Romance films are generally referred to as chick flicks due to the general target audience being
predominantly females.
• Chick-flick is a slang term for a film genre mainly dealing with love and romance and designed to appeal
to a largely female target audience. Although many types of films may be directed toward the female
gender, "chick-flick" is typically used only in reference to films that are heavy with emotion or contain
themes that are relationship-based (although not necessarily romantic as many other themes may be
present).
• Chick-flicks often are released en masse around Valentine's Day.
• Some frequent elements of chick-flicks include having a female protagonist, thematic use of the colour
pink (along with metaphorical allusions of the colour), and romance and/or dating based storylines.
• The concept of films designed to appeal specifically to women has existed since the early days of cinema
and has been known by other colloquial terms, including "women's pictures". Those were generally
critically panned upon their release. However, women's films such as the 1950s melodramas directed by
Douglas Sirk – Imitation of Life and Made of Honor, for example – are often thought by modern critics as
significantly different in tone and content to modern chick-flicks. Specifically, critics cite what they see as
the ironic and complex criticisms of American culture in those past films.
• The 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's, commonly known as one of the 'classic' films from the golden age of
cinema, is sometimes considered as an early chick-flick due to common elements such as dealing with
loneliness, obsessive materialism, and happy endings.
• While most films that are considered chick-flicks are light-hearted, some suspense films also fall under
this category, e.g. What Lies Beneath.

4. Sub-Genres
• Romantic Drama: The plot usually revolves around an obstacle which prevents deep
love between two people. Music is often employed to indicate the emotional mood,
creating an atmosphere of greater insulation for the couple. The conclusion of a romantic
drama typically does not indicate whether a marriage will occur. Some examples of
Romatic Dramas are, “The Bridges of Madison County”, “The English Patient”, “Falling in
Love” and “Casablanca”.
• Romantic Comedies: films with light-hearted, humourous plotlines, centered on
romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. Humour in
such films tends to be of a verbal, low-key variety or situational, as opposed to slapstick.
Films within this genre include, “Love Actually”, “Moonstruck”, “As Good as It Gets”,
“Something's Gotta Give”, “When Harry Met Sally...” and “It's Complicated”.
• Romantic Action Comedies: films that blend romantic comedy and action. Examples
include Killers, Knight and Day, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, This Means War and The Bounty Hunter.
• Romantic Thriller: is a genre of film which has a storyline combining elements of the
romance film and the thriller genre. Some examples of romantic thriller films are The
Adjustment Bureau, The Phantom of the Opera, The Tourist, The Bodyguard, Unfaithful,
and Wicker Park

5. Target Audience
• The typical target audience of a romance are
usually females aging from around 14+.
• The appealing thing to this audience is the fact
there’s always an attractive male lead which
sweeps the female lead off her feet into an
adventure of romance.

6. Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961)
• 1961 American romantic comedy film starring
Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, and
featuring Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin
Balsam, and Mickey Rooney. The film was
directed by Blake Edwards and released by
Paramount Pictures. It is loosely based on the
novella of the same name by Truman Capote.
• nominated for five Academy Awards, Best
Actress for Hepburn, Best Adapted Screenplay,
and Best Art Direction, winning two for Best
Original Score and Best Original Song for the
famous "Moon River". "Moon River" was also
selected as the fourth most memorable song
in Hollywood history by the American Film
Institute in 2004.
• In 2012, the film was deemed "culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant" by the
United States Library of Congress and selected
for preservation in the National Film Registry.

7. Safe Haven (2013)
• Safe Haven is a 2013 American romance film starring Julianne
Hough, Josh Duhamel and Cobie Smulders.
• It was released theatrically in North America on February 14,
2013. The film was directed by Lasse Hallström, and is an
adaptation of Nicholas Sparks's novel of the same name.
• The film was widely panned by critics, but was nonetheless
financially successful with a worldwide.
• The studios it was realted to were Relativity Media and Temple
Hill Entertainment
• Distributed by Relativity Media
• Had a budget $28 million and worldwide made a gross of $96.3
million.
• Safe Haven was universally panned by critics, as it currently
holds a 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 137 critic
reviews. Conversely, Safe Haven earned a 4.2 out of 5 Star
average as rated by over 1.3 million Netflix viewers, as well as a
3.8 of 5 rating among 71,000 viewers on rottentomatoes.com,
revealing that the public is far more approving of this film than
critics were.
• Safe Haven was released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 7, 2013.