Isn’t It Romantic review – romcom parody mostly hits its target
In a fun, glossy take down of age-old genre tropes, Rebel Wilson wakes up in an alternate universe, dominated by romantic comedy cliches
The practice of spoofing romantic comedy cliches is by no means novel, the territory so ripe for ridicule that it’s even spawned entire films devoted to knowing jabs. But because of how easy it is to poke fun at the genre, such ribbing can often feel lazy, highlighting tropes even a casual consumer would know all too well, and given how it remains a mostly dying genre, also a bit mean-spirited. In 2014’s They Came Together, such observations worked best as stand-alone skits but felt strained when forced to stretch to a 90-minute runtime.
Related: Crazy, stupid, love: the mind-altering obsession taking over romcoms