Love is all you need: Romance is in the air and onscreen, so kick back and enjoy

We’ve reached that time of year again – Valentine’s Day. For the cynics, it’s a time to grumble at the commercial aspect, where complex emotions between two human beings are often reduced to an anatomically incorrect chocolate heart wrapped in pink foil. For the romantics, it’s a time to surprise their significant other with a bouquet, an intimate dinner, or one of those cute notes written on a small piece of paper, also in the shape of an anatomically incorrect heart.

But people will eventually want to take a break from debating exactly where that heart shape originates – I’m in the camp of believing it comes from silphium, the ancient plant. Whatever your viewpoint, snuggle up on the couch and prepare to be entertained.

As usual, Netflix – with a series for any occasion – is first on the scene. Based on David Nicholls’ 2009 novel of the same name, One Day is a series about Emma (Ambika Mod) and Dexter (Leo Woodall), two people who meet on the night of their graduation. What follows is a story about how any chance encounter can change the course of several lives forever, as we return to this pair of “just friends” on the same day, every year, for two decades, seeing how they find themselves constantly falling back together before once again drifting apart. This 14-part limited series is sure to pull on some heartstrings and have you reaching for a tissue more than once.

However, if you’d rather spend more time laughing than crying, Netflix has also just dropped Players. A group of thirty-somethings have developed a foolproof system for helping each other pick up men and women at bars. However, when one of them falls hard for New York’s most eligible bachelor (portrayed by Lucifer’s Tom Ellis), the team must pull together for “one last job” of sorts and find the winning combination to get their friend her happily ever after.

Then of course, there are the love stories nestled neatly inside the tropes and formulas of other genres. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Netflix), starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is one of those films that you will probably be aware of, even if you haven’t seen it. The 2005 film about a pair of married secret agents sparked the lead stars’ off-screen relationship, generating celebrity headlines, so it was only a matter of time before Hollywood realised it was worth cashing in on the name.

After several years of delays caused by a number of issues, ranging from the departure of Pheobe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) as co-writer and co-star, to the US writers’ and actors’ strike of last year, 2024’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Prime Video) has finally arrived.

Created by Donald Glover, starring Glover and Maya Erskine, the series follows the titular Jane and John Smith, two strangers paired together to carry out espionage missions under the cover of being an ordinary, loving, husband and wife.

This is a departure from the original film’s concept, which saw Pitt and Jolie playing a couple whose marriage was falling apart before they each discovered the other’s true profession. In the latest version, as time goes on and their work becomes more perilous, the pseudo-spouses find themselves developing a relationship that goes deeper than either of them expected.

In a different genre, I recently came across a film called Bottoms. Directed by Emma Seligman, the film follows best friends PJ (Rachel Sennott, Shiva Baby) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri, The Bear), their high-school’s resident “ugly untalented gays”, as they embark on a mission to lose their virginities to cheerleaders. They decide the best way to go about achieving their goal is by starting an all-girls’ fight club…of course.

The resulting film is one of the funniest I have seen in a long time. A heartwarming story about friendship, it’s set against the backdrop of a US high school which has been elevated to its absurdist extreme, where the footballers are royalty and classes last only five minutes. You’ll watch this film once for the story, and a second time for everything you missed on first viewing. The amount of heart and comedy crammed in this 92-minute runtime is practically intoxicating, with the cast firing on all cylinders throughout. If you don’t already have a Prime Video subscription, then I would highly encourage you to fire up your email address for a one-off, seven-day free trial just for this movie.

On a final, unrelated note, if anyone reading this has not yet seen Wonka (currently screening in cinemas), I would recommend you do so. The film is an utter joy from beginning to end, clearly a labour of love for its creative team, as opposed to being the cheap cash-in on a familiar brand that many people (including me) expected it to be. If you didn’t manage to cap off 2023 with Wonka, you should seek to have it brighten up your February.

More viewing options are given in the panel.

Nat Dolan is an Auckland actor and movie enthusiast