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Parents' Guide to

The Romantics

By Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Indie wedding drama is too mature for young teens.

Movie PG-13 2010 95 minutes
The Romantics Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 14+

Based on 1 parent review

khan2705
khan2705 Adult
February 18, 2011
age 14+

Awful movie. sucked.

1.5/5 Over the course of one raucous night at a seaside wedding seven close friends, all members of a tight, eclectic college clique, reconvene to watch two of their own tie the knot. Laura (Katie Holmes) is maid of honor to Lila (Anna Paquin), her golden girl best friend. The two have long rivaled over the groom, Tom (Josh Duhamel). Friendships and alliances are tested and the love triangle comes to a head the night before the wedding, when the drunken friends frolic in the nearby surf and return to shore... without the groom. Based on the heralded novel by producer, novelist, director Galt Niederhoffer, THE ROMANTICS is a Zeitgeist love story and generational comedy that breathes new life into the genre and recaptures the camaraderie of youth. unbelievable, this movie sucked very badly. i wasn't much excited about this movie or had any big expectations but the only reason i wanted to see this movie was the wonderful, lovable cast of it. i was so excited to watch Katie Holmes, since i think she is one of the most gorgeous woman on earth, literally i love her. the movie on the other hand is very awful, one of the worst movie of last year and ever. it could have been so much better, had potential. direction of this movie is very poor, director doesn't know how to handle and make a movie. screenplay was extremely poor, with no insight, dept, interest, good writing. plot and story was bad. cinematography was nice. written very badly. ending was unfinished so awful ending. movie was so empty and hallow. there wasn't anything in the movie. nothing. movie was very unsatisfying. and my God the characters were terrible. i like Anna Paquin but i would killed her character myself. very bad characters. movie is not engaging or entertaining at all. performances were awful by many all of the actors except Katie Holmes, she did a nice job, i liked her in this movie. the movie had nothing in it i mean that is awful and terrible. the movie felt very flat. DON'T watch this movie guys.
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What's the Story?

Based on director Galt Niederhoffer's own novel, THE ROMANTICS follows a group of seven Ivy League-college friends who gather six years after graduating at a posh Maine beach estate for the wedding of Lila (Anna Paquin) and Tom (Josh Duhamel). Maid of honor Laura (Katie Holmes), who was Lila's college roommate (and, more importantly, Tom's college girlfriend and sometime lover), really doesn't want to be there -- a fact made perfectly clear when she accidentally says "Tom and Laura" during her rehearsal-dinner toast. The trio's best undergraduate friends include two couples: the married Tripler (Malin Akerman) and Pete (Jeremy Strong) and the engaged Jake (Adam Brody) and Weesie (Rebecca Lawrence), all of whom made up a clique they dubbed "The Romantics" in college. As the wedding festivities proceed, it becomes clear that the friends' relationships are still very much in flux.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1 ):
Kids say: Not yet rated

It's fitting that a movie about relationship conflict would lead to conflicting feelings for an audience. Part of the movie is an insightful, even touching look at slightly rootless twenty-somethings for whom undergraduate school was a magical time of friendship and intellectual curiosity. But it's also -- and this is that makes The Romantics difficult to watch -- self indulgent and in some ways unbelievable. Six years after college graduation, a group of friends should have evolved at least somewhat past whatever their undergraduate lives were like, without talking about petty grievances from junior and senior year as if they were all that important to their 28-year-old selves. Who cares if Lila -- the much richer, WASPy roommate -- bought the red dress that Laura wanted to wear to some literary magazine event? Is that really on the same level as the fact that Laura and Tom might still be in love, even though it's the day of Lila and Tom's wedding?

The actors all do their best, but Holmes is so broody that she seems like a slightly older Joey from Dawson's Creek. Duhamel is a casting misstep, because although he's perfect as an athletic Alpha Male, Tom is also supposed to be a true scholar-athlete, and Duhamel isn't Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio -- he can't pull off intellectual types very convincingly. Paquin is cloying as the golden princess who usually gets everything she wants, and Candice Bergen, playing Lila's well-heeled mother Augusta, seems to be rivaling Holland Taylor as the "rich patrician mother" in everything. Most disappointing are the quartet of "other best friends," who apparently had no problem reverting to their college-level casualness for hooking up or otherwise being inappropriate with each other, despite being married or engaged. The sole wise ones in the bunch are Lila's drunk brother, Chip (Elijah Wood), who slurs the truth, and younger sister Minnow (Glee's Dianna Agron), who wonders whether Tom really is the right choice for her sister.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the movie's messages about marriage and friendship. Do you think its take on grown-up relationships is realistic?

  • What are the consequences of the characters' iffy behavior? Do you think the same consequences would happen in real life?

  • Why do the friends keep bringing up their college antics? What does this imply about their lives after graduating?

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