Julia Roberts’ Iconic Rom-Com Has an Unimaginably Low Rotten Tomatoes Score For a Very 2024 Reason

There’s something strange about rom-coms that make us have a love-hate relationship with all of them. Maybe it has to do something with how we feel at the time of watching: are we happy or not, single or married, and so on.

But there are just some movies from the past that made their way into classics, earning a lot of money after its release and winning many hearts over. One of those movies is legendary director Garry Marshall’s rom-com with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. And no, we are not talking about Pretty Woman.

The movie we are about to tell came to light 9 years later, in 1999, and is titled Runaway Bride. With a budget of $70 million it became a commercial success grossing worldwide more than $309.5 million.

What Is Runaway Bride About?

The movie has a complicated and rather questionable plot, if you analyze it from a modern perspective, and it definitely wouldn't fly in 2024.

Anyway, it tells a story of a young woman named Maggie Carpenter whose life has been turned upside down by a columnist named Ike Graham, who has written a report on her poor personal life.

The thing is, in his article he mentioned that she was “almost married” seven times, but he didn’t check the facts so he got a letter from Maggie, claiming that she only had three of them. The letter got the man fired.

But that wasn't enough for him, and Ike Graham decided to go to Maggie's hometown to write the follow-up article about her. And frankly, this is the part of the story that confuses fans. Why would her friends and family engage in a conversation with a man trying to discredit her?

“No one else sees a problem with this, and they accept and enable his extremely inappropriate behavior. I'm going to think twice before streaming a rom-com made before 2010 next time,” one Redditor said.

The fact that a love story would blossom from such a foundation is really unlikely, but isn't that what rom-coms are made for: to make you believe in love? Anyway, the movie has only 46% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is both an unexpected and an obvious turn of events.

Runaway Bride is available to stream on Prime. Give it another try and see what has changed for you since you last watched it.