The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Friends-To-Lovers
An in-depth investigation of the trope.
This week, we’re going long on the famous — or maybe infamous, depending on your political stance — friends-to-lovers trope. It’s one of the most popular tropes in rom-coms, second only to the haters-to-lovers trope. Probably. Are there stats for this? Send us a message if you know.
Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal popularized the format under the hand of rom-com Queen Nora Ephron in When Harry Met Sally… — which, take note, is Annabelle’s favorite rom-com. Plenty have copied bits of this famed rom-com. Some are better than others. In this issue, we’ll crack down on the best and worst movies with the trope, as well as a detailed analysis of the trope itself.
A Definite Categorization of Friends-to-Lovers in Rom-Coms
by Fletcher
Some time ago — I truly have lost count of exactly how long exactly it was — I polled my dear Twitter followers. “Send me your favorite friends-to-lovers films!” I wrote, innocently, unknowingly requesting films that would have a profound emotional effect on me. Life gets hard when you begin to wonder which of your friends could be in love with you! (Answer: definitely none, but. Still horrifying.) I had just finished When Harry Met Sally… and I wanted more, more, more. Ugh.
Not to overshare, but this whole friends-to-lovers situation is a conundrum I frequently face. It’s upsetting how underrepresented I feel in these movies. The situation is never: “when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the life to start as soon as possible.” It’s also not, “Oh my gosh, I love Josh!” It’s burning, it’s often painfully one-sided (from either side, it’s a bad situation), it’s not sweet and delightful!
I watched all of the Twitter recs. I don’t know how many of them there were exactly, but I peeled through the friends-to-lover trope, scouring for the good, the bad, and the ugly. And while this list only includes three films, I happily include some honorable mentions for each category.
Anyways, I’ve said too much. I would like to say, before I begin, that these assessments are only about the trope itself — not the movie as a whole. There are some good ones in the bunch. Here they are, before we get to the bad and the ugly:
THE GOOD: Sleeping with Other People
From the start, the two friends in Sleeping with Other People — the obsessive Lainey (Alison Brie) and her deadbeat college one-night-stand Jake (Jason Sudeikis) — know they aren’t really friends. They share a connection so intimate where they establish a word to diffuse sexual tension (it’s “mousetrap,” referencing a dick in a mousetrap).
Instead of one big moment of realization, their relationship has a more slow, achey burn. They’re clearly in love with one another. And yet, they’ve dug themselves too far into a friendship to leap off into the deep end of anything non-platonic. When it comes to the “I’m in love!” realization moment, Sleeping with Other People is so much more tame than its predecessors.
Also — not to sound like a cinema scholar — the realism and depth in these characters really adds to their prevailing intimacy. Clearly, Lainey has some (highly relatable) anxieties about her romantic past. Jake can’t seem to get serious about anything, and he’s got some anger issues. They seek advice from one another. There’s something about Sleeping with Other People that I’ve yet to find in any other friends-to-lovers rom-com. I can’t pinpoint it exactly. Maybe it’s the subtlety. Maybe it’s, “Are we in love with each other?” Or maybe I just love the horrible 2010s aesthetic.
Honorable Mentions: Plus One, Clueless, Set it Up
THE BAD: When Harry Met Sally…
I could write pages and pages about the good of When Harry Met Sally… — let me write two paragraphs of very picky gripes. I will write positive things about this film in weeks to come.
If any one of my guy friends showed up at a New Year’s Eve party to profess his love in front of gobs of cool NYC socialites, I would definitely not react the way Sally (Meg Ryan) does in this movie. Hell, if any of my longterm guy friends professed their love to me, I doubt I would reciprocate the feeling. Maybe I’m crazy.
Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner certainly know more than I do, so perhaps I should learn when to keep my mouth shut. But I just can’t help but wonder: how do you fall in love with someone, quite spontaneously, that you’ve known for so many years? On top of that, how do you fall in love with a journalist? Disgusting!
I’m nitpicking. I feel this way because When Harry Met Sally is so damn realistic in every other aspect.
Honorable Mentions: What If?, 13 Going on 30, Friends with Benefits
THE UGLY: Love, Rosie
I don’t even feel the need to justify this. Love, Rosie just blows. Where is the chemistry? Can someone lead me to the chemistry? There is none! They profess their love to one another in an airport. I have time for cliches. But tacking on the airport cliche to another cliche (friends-to-lovers, in case you forgot) — oh dear.
Honorable Mentions: No Strings Attached, Always Be My Maybe
Friends-to-Lovers, But You Were Never Really Friends
by Annabelle
Listen, I love this trope as much as anyone else. When Harry Met Sally… is my favorite rom-com for a reason, and that’s because in the rare cases where the writers actually get it right, I do believe that this is the purest form of love there is. (Hermione and Ron belong together okay! Fuck JK Rowling but it makes sense!) However, so often this trope gets muddled up because of the age-old friends with benefits plot. It sucks! I have seen countless versions of this playing out poorly both in my own personal life and those of practically all of my friends.
is this so much to ask for?
One cannot talk about the friends-to-lovers trope without talking about perhaps the two most obvious examples of such a story- No Strings Attached and Friends with Benefits. These are, essentially, the same movie and I won’t dance around it: along with coming out the exact same year (2011), the plot of both centers around a guy and a girl who try to have sex without it turning into a relationship. Obviously, this does not work (I mean, come on), but not for the reasons that you think. The problem with both of these pseudo couples, and ultimately the reason why they are able to end up together, is that actually, they were never really friends.
In the beginning of No Strings Attached, a young Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman are shown as teens at a summer camp. Adam (Kutcher) is upset over the break-up of his summer camp girlfriend, and Emma (Portman) attempts to console him. Immediately after, being the horny teenager he is, Adam asks if he can finger Emma, and she refuses.
i’m so sad about my break-up… can i finger you haha :(
Friends With Benefits starts off a bit later in the timeline, where Jamie (Mila Kunis) is attempting to recruit Dylan (Justin Timberlake) for a position at GQ. Dylan is hesitant to accept the job, as it would mean that he would have to move across the country from Los Angeles to New York City, and in an attempt to convince him, Jamie, very flirtatiously, takes him to experience the magic of New York City, flash-mob included.
The rest of both films follows the characters’ hesitation to launch into a relationship, instead preferring to be the titular “friends with benefits.” That is, until the very final scene of the movie where both couples reveal their growing attraction to each other beyond just sex. Shocker! This ending was inevitable for both the couples in the movies because they were deluding themselves with the idea of being friends.
“i’m in love with my best friend” spoiler alert! you always were!
In both cases, at least one if not both of the main characters expressed their attraction to the other. From the very genesis of their relationship, it was clear that they could never be just friends. Friends don’t ask to finger each other! Friends don’t show each other on a romantic tour around NYC including flash mob! If a relationship is truly platonic, there can be no attraction. At that point, it’s no longer a friendship. (This applies to real-life too.)
If you are having sex with someone and you like them as a person, then that’s not your friend because friends don’t have romantic feelings for each other. If you are having sex with someone and you don’t like them as a person, then that’s still not your friend because the requirement for friendship is two people who enjoy each others company. Also, as a general rule, friends don’t have sex. Does this make sense?
I thought about this for a few days, wondering whether or not a true, happy, “friends with benefits” relationship was actually possible outside of the movies. I asked some of my friends their opinions on this, and most of them agreed with my thesis of never actually being friends, but by far the best response came from my friend Fred.
“Do you think anyone could ever be truly happy just being ‘friends with benefits?’” I asked. “I think maybe,” he replied, “But probably only if you’re an asshole.”