Romance

Romance films use loads of cliches that make the film popular and often to make them appeal to an American market. In almost every romance film their is a man or a woman (the main character) looking for love and more often than not, they are not too successful. This is the case in Notting Hill, when we see early on, Hugh Grant's attempt to flirt with Julia Roberts with appalling jokes and awkward chat. Dramatic Irony is a good technique for romance films especially, when there is a love rival and the rival is a baddie or just a bit of a jerk, it makes us as an audience get a bit uptight and a bit scared that they may pick the wrong choice as the character with the choice doesnt know what they are really like. We see some dramatic irony when Grant doesn't know that Roberts' character is a movie star. Another strong romance cliche we see near the begining of Notting Hill is the hopeless but loyal sidekick, although in the first few scenes we dont get to see his loyalty or the entirity of his hoplessness but we do see that he is hopless in the scene when he is asking what shirt to wear to his date. We see in Notting Hill that opposites attract, the fact that he is an englishman working in a small book shop that is struggling to make a profit, and she is a big time American actress who has to disguise herself to prevent being mobbed by fans.