Music, Sound, and the Moving Image

This article looks at the use of pre-existing pop songs in romantic comedies by production company Working Title (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones's Diary, Love Actually, and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) and shows how, especially in Love Actually and the two Bridget Jones films, the characters themselves, but by implication and filmic design also the films, make use of these songs and ridicule them at the same time. This self-reflexive use of music is discussed on the background of the films' construction of Englishness, but also set in the context of the history of romantic comedies and their uses of self-reflexivity.