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If you rented Emma (2020) on VOD this weekend, first of all, you made the correct decision. Directed by Autumn de Wilde, this Jane Austen adaptation —which is now available on VOD early for $19.99 for a 48-hour viewing period—is a freakin’ delight. And if you fell in love with actor Johnny Flynn as the dashing Mr. George Knightley, hoo boy, do I have good news for you. Nay, I have great news. I have news that is so incredible, I’m honestly jealous that I’m not the one receiving this news. Here it is: Lovesick, one of my favorite romantic comedies of the last decade, is streaming on Netflix and stars Flynn as the bumbling-but-charming romantic lead.
In Emma—which stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma Woodhouse, the wide-eyed, spoiled rich girl who insists on meddling in others’ lives—Flynn is the moral, quick-witted young man who grew up around the Woodhouse household and enjoys playfully pointing out Emma’s selfish ways. (Yes, he is the Paul Rudd character in Clueless, and yes, Clueless is a loose adaptation of Emma.) He’s kind and compassionate by nature, but like any good Jane Austen leading man, Emma has a way of pushing his buttons. Mix that with their longterm friendship and palpable chemistry, and it’s all very charming and swoon-worthy.
Flynn in Lovesick, on the other hand, is more of an adorable trash man. As Dylan Witter, the protagonist, he’s a hopeless romantic who is diagnosed with chlamydia and tasked with tracking down all of his sexual partners to let them know. (There are a lot of them.) He’s not exactly the dignified English gentleman he embodies in Emma—instead, he’s a 20-something English dude sharing a flat in Glasgow with his friends, with a knack for dating women who dump him in increasingly pathetic ways. But Dylan does have one important thing in common with Mr. George Knightley: He’s foolishly, hopelessly, undeniably in love with his best friend.
The epic love story of Dylan and Evie (the incredible Antonia Thomas) is one for the books. Whether or not you’re a hopeless romantic like Dylan, you’ll fly through the three short seasons of Lovesick wanting more, more, more. It’s the perfect combination of a friend group sitcom and a sweeping, all-consuming romance. It is, in other words, the perfect romantic comedy.
Maybe you know Lovesick by its former title, Scrotal Recall—a hilarious show name that unfortunately made it very hard to recommend with a straight face. Thank god creator Tom Edge changed the name, because I am being absolutely, 100 percent serious when I say that I cannot recommend Lovesick—which first aired on Channel 4 in the UK before being scooped up as a Netflix Original—strongly enough. Whether he’s a gentleman farmer in Regency Era England or a floppy-haired British twenty-something in 2016 Scotland, Johnny Flynn knows how to stare at a woman like she’s the only thing in the world there is to look at. I humbly thank him for sharing his talents with all of us.
