Many of us have been isolated during the pandemic lockdown and ended up watching a lot of movies. I particularly enjoyed revisiting a few popular romantic comedies. Having seen them when they first came out in theaters years ago, I was pleasantly reminded that these four award-winning box-office hits were all made by Richard Curtis.
Universal Pictures UK had posted a video on YouTube of memorable moments from four wonderful romcoms: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually, and About Time.
The video was used to launch his latest film at that time, About Time, promoting it with the beautiful theme song, How Long Will I Love You?, movingly sung by Ellie Goulding from her new album, Halcyon Days.
I’d seen these films again, most recently About Time. It’s a sweet story about using time travel to improve romantic outcomes, with an edifying conclusion. The theme song was relevant and touching. While searching for it online I discovered this video using it to highlight all four films.
Ellie Goulding’s cover of a Waterboys song used in the About Time official soundtrack reminded me of Dan Fogelberg‘s beautiful song, Longer. Both songs profess loving someone forever. Watch her music video of the song intermixed with visuals from the film.
Another cover of the song in the film’s OST is by Jon Boden, Sam Sweeney & Ben Coleman. The Waterboys original 1990 song on their Room to Roam album was remastered in 2008.
Richard Curtis also wrote the screenplay to the musical romantic comedy, Yesterday. I loved it and created this post: Can you imagine a world without the Beatles? Watch the new film “Yesterday” to find out.
See this earlier post on some of my favorite romantic films. I later added: Writing, literature, life and love intersect in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The spring rains renew life and the promise of love in this film, A Good Rain Knows, inspired by the poetry of Du Fu.
If you like, please leave a comment with your favorite films.
Later added: Speaking of time travel, romance, and Rachel McAdams, she starred in the 2009 film, The Time Traveler’s Wife, directed by Robert Schwentke, where a Chicago librarian has a gene that causes him to involuntarily time travel, creating complications in his marriage.
The Time Traveler’s Wife was made into a 6-part HBO series in 2022, based on the 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger, and starred Rose Leslie as Clare. Developed and written by Steven Moffat, the TV series was cancelled after one season.
Tags: About Time, Ellie Goulding, films, Four Weddings and a Funeral, How Long Will I Love You?, Love Actually, movies, Notting Hill, Richard Curtis, romantic comedies
The Uncarved Blog 
October 7, 2021 at 10:38 am |
[…] ‘How Long Will I Love You’ sung by Ellie Goulding highlights 4 Romantic Comedies by Richard Curtis. […]
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November 13, 2021 at 8:02 pm |
Thank you for this. Al those movies are worth seeing again, and I plan to do so now. I never saw the Yesterday film, and will look for that as well.
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November 13, 2021 at 8:28 pm |
Yes, Deborah, they are. ‘Yesterday’ was enjoyable. Saw it in the theater when it came out. I saw ‘About Time’ again and loved it. I also watched ‘The Love Letter’ again, twice. Someone asked about the poetry in that film. So I paid closer attention this time. I transcribed the one towards the end of the film in a reply. It was a 1998 Hallmark Hall of Fame film. Really well done! The old link didn’t work and I found it posted on YouTube. You can find out more about it under UPDATE in this post https://theuncarvedblog.com/2015/02/19/time-for-some-humor-and-love-welcome-back/. I also saw a new Netflix film, ‘Love Hard’ https://www.netflix.com/watch/81086631. More current, but the writing was good in places.
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