What Romantic Comedies Can Teach Us about Communication

While many rom-com plots stretch the limits of plausibility, the characters and the situations they spotlight offer valuable lessons on communication that can be applied to many aspects of our lives, including professional situations. Eli J. Finkel, a professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School, explores relationship science through the lens of rom-coms in his new podcast, “Love Factually,” co-hosted with UC Davis psychology professor Paul Eastwick.

Here, Finkel shares how rom-coms can teach us how to better communicate in work and life.

How we engage in risky communication

In the rom-coms of the 1980s and 1990s, male leads often take huge gambles in the name of winning the love of the woman they admire—sometimes even after she has clearly registered her disinterest. In the movies, these gambles pay off. Think Heath Ledger crooning to Julia Stiles while she practices soccer in 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You, or John Cusack’s character, Lloyd Dobler, appearing under Ione Skye’s bedroom window holding a boombox blasting their special song in 1989’s Say Anything.

But Finkel says that rom-coms “get it wrong in terms of focusing always on being bold and risk seeking, and never really being careful enough to say, ‘I don’t want to be intrusive.’” That is, it is also important to consider: How much is too much? Should one keep asserting oneself if given a brush-off at first? At some point, after all, a grand-enough gesture gets creepy.

These questions are also important to ask in the workplace, Finkel says. In his view, management researchers haven’t yet adequately investigated the optimal strategy for taking social risks.

“One of the things that I find especially interesting about how we handle relationships in general, and workplace relationships in particular,” Finkel says, “is how we manage the tension between risking overtures that might not be welcome—I’m not talking about sexual overtures, but trying to collaborate, being friendly, those sorts of things—versus trying to avoid making an overture that is unwelcome but that will necessarily come with missing some opportunities for connection.”

The challenge applies beyond just the bedroom and the boardroom.

“I don’t think as a society that we’ve engaged seriously with the fact that there is no perfect solution to this,” Finkel says. “We tell people to be bold and take the risks and try to make friends and try to initiate collaborations, knowing full well that if we’re doing that all the time, some of those efforts will be unwelcome.”

How we handle disagreement

In the “what not to do” vein, rom-coms tend to showcase poor communication habits. (And unlike overly risky overtures, these habits actually do create problems for the main characters.)

For instance, in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the 2004 sci-fi film about a couple who erase their memories of one another after breaking up, we see several unproductive ways of addressing conflict. The couple in the film, Clementine (Kate Winslet) and Joel (Jim Carrey), often exhibit what relationship psychologist John Gottman refers to as “The Four Horsemen” of the relationship apocalypse: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.

“Criticism is when you’re not only raising an objection to what somebody did, but you’re attributing it to a failing in their character,” Finkel says. “Contempt is where we feel like we’re better than the other person,” resulting in a condescending or snide approach to communication.

Defensiveness is being unwilling to even entertain someone’s criticism or complaint, and stonewalling is when someone physically or mentally withdraws and is unable to further engage in productive discussion.

“Although all of these are especially corrosive when handling conflict,” he says, “the opposite approach—open, honest, non-defensive communication— unfortunately makes for lousy rom-coms.”

Fortunately, the ways rom-coms treat communication have become more sophisticated. The 2024 tennis love-triangle story, Challengers, explores how power dynamics shape people’s behaviors within relationships and how that can facilitate or hinder their self-realization.

“I think that the insecurities that people have are handled in a much more psychologically interesting and rich way in the newer romantic films,” says Finkel, a dynamic that bodes well for more communications lessons to come.

How trust and vulnerability lead to connection

Similarly, the main characters in rom-coms often put up a front to avoid being vulnerable, leaving them unable to form a meaningful connection. Consider Kat’s character, played by Stiles, in 10 Things I Hate about You. For most of the movie, she seems prickly and indifferent to affection, but we eventually learn that her disposition is a self-protective stance against rejection or betrayal.

“In a lot of rom-coms, people are a little wary of expressing how interested they are,” Finkel says. But whether in romantic relationships or at work, “we can try to have a strong, meaningful connection with somebody, but what that requires is we must make ourselves vulnerable to that person.” In a professional context, that might look like emotional vulnerability, or it could mean putting one’s trust in a colleague to deliver on their part of a project.

Vulnerability and trust come with risks. “If you and I are going to collaborate on a project, I have to trust that you’re going to get your side done on time and with high quality. And if I trust you to do that and I’m wrong, there are real costs for me,” he explains. “If the other person treats us badly, exploits us in some way, doesn’t deliver a high-quality product, we are sort of screwed, right?”

But what are the alternatives? The other option is to remain closed off, or to express one’s mistrust by micromanaging. “All of us, always, in relationships confront a trade-off between really leaning in and saying, ‘This is a relationship that I’m going to allow myself to depend on in various ways,’ versus ‘I’m going to make sure that I’m safe and that this person can’t ever exploit me or disappoint me in some way,’” he says.

Thoughtfully considering these trade-offs, then—and not being too risk-averse—is as key to professional success as it is to romantic success.

How everyone is prone to communication gaffes

All of us screw up on occasion, and some of these blunders hurt other people. Think of the film La La Land, in which Sebastian, played by Ryan Gosling, arrives late to his girlfriend Mia’s (Emma Stone) one-woman play due to a scheduling snafu.

“Insofar as Mia cares about the relationship,” says Finkel, “she confronts a dilemma in how to respond: Does she lean into her entirely legitimate grievance, or does she open her heart to forgiveness and understanding?”

Finkel recognizes the costs of favoring forgiveness when we have been hurt, but he nonetheless recommends it as the default strategy. This is especially true in response to verbal gaffes in professional settings, as organizations require the cooperation and good faith of a team of people who may come from different backgrounds and bring different lenses to a situation. We need to remember that we, too, get it wrong sometimes.

“When we open our mouths to give voice to what we’re thinking and feeling, it doesn’t always translate perfectly. And then there really is a divide between my mouth and your ears, which means that it may not land on your ears the way I intended it,” he says. “Given all of those levels of uncertainty, the organization and the relationship will benefit to the degree that we try to give the benefit of the doubt. And when we’re upset or offended, give the person an opportunity to clarify.”