The inner wild child/dork: Be it braces, a weight problem, a torrid affair or fashion casualty, nothing is easier in romantic comedies than bringing someone down a notch or two with a skeleton in the closet. Here, it is an admission of the Rob Base classic "It Takes Two" by Tate.
Running on empty: As if a light bulb appears over the head of one of the leads, he/she dashes after the significant other at the conclusion to profess true love. This usually occurs after a misunderstanding in which one feels dejected/jealous of the fragile relationship.
The awkward “night out”: In an attempt to blend, one of the leads heads out with family/friends of the other for a night of bonding. Things never end well. In The Proposal, the gals all congregate at the local tavern, which apparently doubles as a male strip club, in which an overweight, middle-aged waiter shoves his junk in Margaret's face.
Awkward toasts: The leads or their friends are guilty of TMI in a public confession that causes an audience to sit in stunned silence. Both leads here are goaded to share their first encounter in a labored scene that would have been so much better if both merely fibbed that they were drunk and the bar was closing.
This list is by no means complete, but those are the ones to be found in the strictly by-the-numbers effort here. Feel free to add your own squares to the bingo card with items like:
- The bitter best friends
- The temporary break-up
- The makeover
- Finding comfort in binging (this could include shopping, drinking or eating)
- The realization (typically a music-only montage of loneliness from one of the leads)
You get the idea.
Oh, and by the way, bingo!
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