There are a few ingredients essential to any successful romantic comedy. First, the characters have to live in an expensive city and have really nice apartments despite working as, like, freelance dog photographers or culture bloggers. Second, their love interest has to be a prickly pseudo-jerk who, if he can just come to realize there’s more to life than running a successful architectural firm, will reveal a hidden, very tender heart. Lastly, that dude, when he looks at his co-star, needs to convey a lifetime of complex emotions through his eyes alone.
Alanna Bennett, zooming in on this last point, has crafted a theory of The Look, extending from romcoms to romantic dramas (or “romdrams”). Starting from the natural jumping-off point of Dawson Creek’s Pacey, Bennett put forth a convincing thesis for the importance of a male actor’s peeper placement.
Wouldn’t you be surprised to learn that Twitter has latched on to this with the burning passion of of a thousand mid-‘90s Hugh Grants? Keep your heart, Three Stacks, because we’re going deep into romance territory.
For instance, here is a weirdly saturated, Twilight-lookin’ GIF of James McAvoy offering a textbook example of The Look:
A few more classics include fan favorites like these baby-faced versions of Paul Rudd and Ethan Hawke to everyone’s boyfriend, Colin Firth: