You all know the drill. Most romantic comedies follow the same formula—one hot person meets another hot person. They may have had a previous dating history or a long-standing friendship fraught with sexual/romantic tension. They part ways, but we as the audience know that they belong together. Yet, one obstacle or mishap after another prevents them from realizing their true feelings for each other until the inevitable happy ending.
While most protagonists in a typical rom-com are in their 20s or early 30s, a newer crop of these films feature middle-aged women ranging in age from their late 30s to 50s. In what is being dubbed a “mom-com,” ladies of a certain age (and, often, mothers) as the object of someone’s affection.
This isn’t a totally new concept, of course, but the uptick in these comedies is not to be ignored. In 2022, Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson gave us a hilariously complicated quest for love in Marry Me. The following year, Reese Witherspoon got her happy ending with Ashton Kutcher in Your Place or Mine. And this year, we’ve been gifted two movies that prove women never stop being desirable, even to younger men — Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron’s heated fling in A Family Affair and Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine’s similar hit The Idea of You.
Turning the tables on countless movies that relegate an older woman to merely a maternal role (whether the character is a mother or not), these characters are worldly, fiercely embrace their sexuality, and want to satisfy that craving for romantic love.
In Hollywood’s not-so-distant past, women past the age of thirty were passed over—as they had “aged out.” If in the event they become mothers, these characters were pushed even further down the “hot” scale. Historically, in society’s eyes, following the birth of a child or reaching middle age, a woman is expected to renounce her sexuality and desirability because she is taking on a new role of nurturer and caregiver—and therefore should be content with that status, putting behind her previous life as a sexually or romantically fulfilled person.
As more women are embracing midlife and no longer wish to conform to such antiquated notions and outdated standards of beauty and attractiveness attached to age or parenthood, Hollywood is finally taking notice of a mature woman’s desirability and making her the one that’s pursued and sought after.
In several of the aforementioned movies, not only is there is significant age difference between the couples, but the woman is refreshingly the older partner. Marry Me stars Lopez as Kat Valdez, who is, well, a J.Lo-like character, a famous singer who is about to marry her younger boyfriend Bastian (Maluma) onstage during a performance. With their fans waiting with bated breath for this wedding of the century, right before they are about to tie the knot, its revealed that he was cheating on her. Onstage, clad in wedding dress, and in complete shock, as she must carry out this highly-promoted wedding (although to me it did smell like a publicity stunt), she impulsively marries Charlie (Wilson), a divorced teacher who came to the show with his friend and daughter. Throughout the film, though Kat is mending a broken heart and trying to quash the bad publicity, this is a story of discovery. Pursued on one end by her philandering superstar ex and by a mild-mannered, clean cut, average guy closer to her own age on the other, she gets to choose who and what she wants. She has money, she has a good life, she calls the shots.
Similarly, 2024’s A Family Affair employs a mature woman chased by a much younger man who has less-than-redeemable qualities. Zara (Joey King) works as an assistant for the arrogant, narcissistic, Chris Cove (Efron). An immediate attraction to her widowed writer mother Brooke (Kidman) and they have an impulsive one-night stand that turns into a dating situation. Zara is exasperated by Chris’ selfishness, lack of awareness, and treatment of previous girlfriends when he is over the relationship, but she is especially critical when the receiver of his player nature is her mother. Brooke has her own revelation is to how she feels about the relationship. Admitting to her former mother-in-law (Kathy Bates) that her marriage was not picture perfect before her husband died, she claims that this dalliance has woken up feelings in her that were stuffed down. Though Brooke is trying her hardest to honor her daughter’s wishes and remain the steadfast parent she’s always been, in the haze of infatuation the heart took over.
When SheKnows’ Alice Kelly spoke to A Family Affair director Richard Lagravenese about Hollywood’s increased focus on women in their 40s and beyond, he credited changing attitudes about women’s sexuality for the shift.
“I think there’s something in the culture right now,” Lagravenese said. “[There’s] this idea that it doesn’t matter what age you are, and especially women, can experience their their ability to love and their sexuality at any age, at any time, with anyone and there shouldn’t be any issue about it.”
Though Brooke’s focus on caring for her child is slightly minimized due to her being a young adult, in Your Place or Mine, when the child is still young, things can get a little more complicated. Entirely focused on caring for her allergy-prone son to the point of overprotectiveness, Debbie (Reese Witherspoon) lives a sensible, risk-free life, with a career that’s not exactly for her. Though they had a fling when they were younger, her longtime platonic friendship with Peter (Kutcher), a carefree bachelor and consultant, is a constant. With Peter stepping in to care for her son so that she can head to a program in New York to help her advance in her career, Debbie gets to explore new work, romantic possibilities, and her own identity as a woman and mother while she’s away—including just how Peter fits into her life.
Though the films are hardly realistic when it comes to love and relationships, they are a lovely distraction for when you crave romance. Whether you’re a mother or not, we all know that there isn’t an age cap on a woman’s desirability, exploration of her sensuality, and finding and receiving romantic love. More women in midlife, myself included, refuse to give up our badass status as we get older, nor are we giving up on love, sex, and happiness. Let’s get real. We’re getting hotter as we age. Hollywood gets it, and its high time the rest of the world does as well.
Before you go, click here and check out these TV shows about women over 50.
