Amid the blockbuster releases involving Avengers and X-Men are two indie features, Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship and Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster, purveying human-scaled stories about courtship.  In mocking mating rites, both Stillman’s giddily enjoyable adaptation of the Jane Austen novella and Lanthimos’ seriously funny horror comedy provide alternative definitions of romance for those looking for love in the age of Tinder. (You can read my reviews here.)

Have been thinking a great deal about the difficulties facing writers and filmmakers interested in romantic comedy, two words that make many a moviegoer reach for his remote control. This pair of movies, one set in 1794 and the other in the near future, create the obstacles to courtship necessary that avoid the formula plot. What are other movies that do so? I’m thinking 500 Days of Summer and Trainwreck where it’s the female rather than the male who is commitment-shy. Others?