Top 10 Cringiest Moments in Romantic Comedies

In her first role in fifteen years, Jane Fonda returned in 2005 to play Viola, the titular “Monster-in-Law.” She sets out to ruin her son’s relationship so as not to lose him to his new fiancée, Charlie. The ongoing battle between Viola and Charlie culminates on the day of the wedding when Viola wears a white dress rather than the peach-colored bridesmaid dress picked out for her. Now, many people can relate to having a... let’s say “strained” relationship with their in-laws, but how many times has that strain led to an all-out slap fight? The back-and-forth face slaps in this scene are definitely more awkward than funny, though we assume they were going for funny.

To understand the cringeiness of this scene, we first have to understand where Jennifer Garner’s character is coming from. And the answer to that lies in the mind of a thirteen-year-old girl. You see, there’s a whole thing with some mean girls, magic dust and a wish to be thirty, and that gets us to a thirteen-year-old Jenna in a thirty-year-old body, hence the title. When her adult friend tells her that some guy is checking her out, we totally understand why Jenna would assume it’s definitely not the legal adult standing at the bar behind her. But, that doesn’t make it any less awkward to watch her shyly hit on a teenage boy.

Raise your hand if you had a crush on your babysitter when you were a kid. We can all relate to young Robbie falling in love with his beautiful seventeen-year-old babysitter Jessica in “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” And there are probably some past babysitters out there who crushed on a parent of the kids they took care of. But, that is where the relatability of this story stops. Jessica takes intimate photos of herself to give to Robbie’s dad, but ultimately ends up giving them to Robbie at his 8th grade graduation. We aren’t sure if it’s cringe-worthy because she’s seventeen and he’s thirteen or because the pics were originally for his father. Probably both, actually.

On the surface, “Shallow Hal” is about a shallow man who learns to look past physical appearances and see the true, inner beauty of people. However, the movie employs a lot of poorly timed cringe comedy along the way, basically coming off as one big body-shaming fat joke. A perfect example of this is the “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You” montage that features the slim and beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow as the “inner beauty” of the overweight Rosemary. She eats a lot, weighs down a canoe and makes a monster splash in the pool. What are we laughing at here? Nothing, as a matter of fact.

Looking at a workout video of the new, hot transfer student and telling a classmate how sexy you think he is isn’t too big of a big deal. However, Elle makes the whole situation about as awkward as possible after accidentally turning on the school intercom. She doesn’t just say he’s hot and move on; she apparently digs deep into her stand-up routine and goes on a two-minute rant about how drop-dead sexy this guy is while the entire school laughs. It was super embarrassing for her and we gotta admit, it was kinda embarrassing for us, too.

Part of the appeal of rom-coms, or any movie, really, is how removed they are from our real lives. However, many of us can, unfortunately, relate to Ben Stiller’s character in this scene. After trying to expand his boundaries by trying a Moroccan restaurant with Jennifer Aniston’s Polly, he finds himself in some dire gastric straits. In his defence, the bathroom wasn’t… let’s say “equipped”… to handle such an undertaking. Still, we knew bad would turn worse as soon as he grabbed that embroidered towel and worse still when he tried to hide the evidence. We’re pretty sure even the ferret knew a towel would clog the toilet.

We’ll admit we love a good montage makeover scene. Give us a good song, some time-lapse moments, throw in a few jokes and we’re in rom-com heaven. Except when it comes to the one in “The Ugly Truth,” because the truth is that this scene is ugly. Watching this macho, sleazy man objectify and demean the smart and beautiful Katherine Heigl is anything but funny. All he does is lay down antiquated lines about how guys feign interest because they want to sleep with you and to always laugh at their jokes even if they aren’t funny - all while telling her that her chest needs to say, “Hello.” It's like watching an awful, horny, stand-up comic.

We hate to do this, but we have to. We understand that, to many people, the cards scene in “Love Actually” is one of the great romantic scenes in the history of rom-coms. And we aren’t denying its aesthetic brilliance, but it needs to be mentioned how awkward it is contextually. Remember, Mark is declaring his love for his best friend’s wife. And just imagine what things will be like going forward when they’re all hanging out together with this huge secret hanging between them. Tell us that doesn’t make you cringe a little.

Jeremy experiences a whole host of horrors during his stay at the Cleary residence, but this took things way too far. In this scene, Gloria, whom Jeremy’s dubbed a “Stage 5 Clinger,” sneaks into his room at night, ties him up and takes advantage while he protests. There’s no doubt the scene got a lot of laughs, but would it be funny if the roles were reversed? Absolutely not. In fact, if the roles were reversed and Vince Vaughn were tying up Isla Fisher against her will, we’d be more likely watching an episode of “SVU” than a big, Hollywood romantic comedy. It’s played for laughs, but this disturbing scene is all-cringe, no-com.

While “the City” in “Sex and the City” refers to New York, the second film in the franchise saw the women leave for the Middle East. Obviously things are a little different in the UAE compared to NYC and a fish-out-of-water scenario is often rife with comedic possibilities. However, there’s also potential for cringe-inducing and awkward cultural gags. And unfortunately, this scene falls squarely in the latter. The ladies running around in Islamic female clothing so they can get to the airport in time without inciting a mob is bad enough, but then... Carrie showing some leg to get a cab crosses the line from embarrassing to downright painful. Youch.