I remember often telling my college film class students that they really didn’t know how wonderful romantic comedies could be, as we were then living in an age of wretched films in that genre. I emphasized that though it might seem positively prehistorical to them, the 1930s and early 1940s provide modern viewers with a treasure trove of rom-coms. While I enjoyed, in wildly varying degrees, some of the more “modern” rom-coms at the time, my favorites ended up being The Big Sick and Notting Hill. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, You’ve Got Mail (which of course is based on a better rom-com, 1940’s Shop Around the Corner), Crazy Rich Asians, and Palm Springs all merit a mention, I suppose, but I’m not sure the last two mentioned here will become anything like a classic.

In the last few months, I’ve noticed a new wave of rom-coms, and I got my hopes up, especially since the casts have been comprised of intelligent and talented actors. But to those who think that these films suggested a renaissance of GOOD rom-coms, the results are disappointing. Out of the four I’m addressing here, one is pretty terrible, two are nearly identical on paper, and the last is the best, but it contains a poison pill.

Going from least to best:

Anyone But You stars the new “it-boy” Glen Powell, who is something of a cross between the more mature Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey. Simply put, the movie is awful. The screenplay is unoriginal and painfully predictable, and the acting, especially on the part of Powell’s co-star Sydney Sweeney, is pretty rough.

This terrible-titled film is part of the new insurgence of R-rated comedies, which simply showcase nudity and F-bombs instead of addressing life’s and love’s issue with a modicum of maturity. (Full disclosure: I didn’t intend to see this but was visiting a relative who chose to watch it. We both regretted it). Fortunately, the name is pretty forgettable.

Bottom line: Don’t waste your time.

The next two are essentially the same film: Older Oscar-winning actress plays a character who falls into a relationship with a much younger man. The age thing aside—which is impossible to put aside when watching either film—the other complication is that one actress has the affair with a pop-rock star adored by her disapproving daughter, and the lead actress in the other film has the affair with her daughter’s much-younger boss. Neither relationship is believable, as hard as everyone tries.

The Idea of You (another dreadful and forgettable title) stars Anne Hathaway as a 40-year-old mom having a relationship with a young man half her age. Complications other than the age thing are the continued opposition of her daughter, the dark envy of apparently every young boy-band fan in the English-speaking world, and the oppressive glare of the spotlight on the two of them. The is the better of the two middle films here, but not by much. While the beginning of the relationship is a bit more plausible due to the pacing of the script and the skills of the two main actors, things descend quickly into fantasy as mom decides to go on the road with her new young love. You could drive a 14-wheeler through the gaps in logic at this point in the film. You know how it’s all going to work out, and it does, but other than watching two attractive leads do the best they can, this is not a good use of one’s time.

The other near-identical film is A Family Affair, this time a forgettable but not terrible name. It features Nicole Kidman pretending to be 50, and the young man is Zac Efron, still buff from The Iron Claw. This one kicks off the relationship with the two leads at a literally preposterous rate, with Kidman putting her head on Efron’s shoulder WAY too early, and connecting with him on a level that his character clearly doesn’t possess. Another stumbling block to connecting with the plot of the film is that Efron’s character is a total selfish jerk, and while the script wants us to believe that a more mature woman’s interest turns him into less of a jerk, it doesn’t really show that. The weight of the absurd elements that we are supposed to buy as viewers is simply too much for even these talented actors.

The only saving grace here is the wonderful Joey King (“We Were the Lucky Ones”) as the appalled daughter. She is the logical center of the film and only reason to see it.

The best of these four film, yet one with a literally fatal flaw, is the most recent Hit Man, also starring Glen Powell (Yes, the one in Twisters—he’s everywhere at the moment.) Powell is charming and smart, Adria Arjona is perfectly matched with Powell (as actors as well as their characters), and the film takes us on a journey of twists and turns that keep surprising us. Then, then…the end comes, and all the good will that we have invested into the film is supposed to carry us into the dark realities of the last few minutes.

I didn’t expect, or even want, a traditional happy/sappy ending, but the conclusion wasn’t funny to me, or even believable in the context of what has come before. Plus it’s as nihilistic and bad-taste-in-mouth as 2018’s The Favourite was to me, and I walked away morally repulsed and dismayed. The film is deft enough not to sit in its moral stench for too long, and we are supposed to carry our happy and entertaining experiences right into and onto the final scene. But I couldn’t. Yes, I get that this is based on a true story—loosely based, I imagine. I also get the whole Nietzsche thing, starting with Powell as a professor of psychology and philosophy aspect, and reaching a supposedly liberating mental and emotional place at the end.

What IS here is generally enjoyable in terms of the main actors and the trajectory of the plot. What’s NOT here is a deeper exploration of identity, a challenge to Nietzschean thought, and an imaginative ending that wrapped things up instead of blowing it up.