Everyone has got it in for chick flicks this year. Apparently, they are too fluffy and clichéd for these serious times and we should all know better. I don’t get it. More than ever now, I am drawn to those posters featuring Jennifer Aniston romping in the sunshine with a puppy. Confessions of a Shopaholic got trashed by the critics, but took more than £2.5m in the UK in its opening weekend. And, like it or not, Renée Zellweger is bound to pull in the crowds playing a smarty-pants city girl who relocates to Nowheresville and finds love in New in Town. (Yes, you know the plot before you’ve bought the popcorn. And you know she’ll get accidentally drunk and fall over in the snow. And there’ll be a hunky vet waiting to catch her. Or a lumberjack. Or a paediatrician. And that is exactly the way we like it.)

It’s very simple: if you want reality stripped bare, go and see The Class. If you feel like cosy, predictable escapism — the celluloid equivalent of a foot rub while tucked up under a fluffy blanket listening to The Lady in Red — then go with Jennifer, Isla and co. And for those who fret that the female public are being denied independent role models and are being emotionally stunted by sugary happy endings, I would say “Duh”. We’re not interested in the getting-the-man bit (Marley & Me is about getting a dog, anyway). It’s all the other stuff that makes a romcom/chick flick irresistible.

There are the rom houses (always with white brass beds, shutters and real log fires, no matter how humble the characters’ circumstances). There are the rom clothes (sloppy cardigan over bias-cut, floral-print dress and rope wedges; vests and sawn-off denim shorts; boy shorts and chunky house socks). There are the classic rom settings: the inevitable snow scene, bonfires and sparklers, dinner alfresco with Chinese paper lanterns, the unwrapping of presents in boxes layered with tissue. And there are always walks on the beach and paddling in the surf (note, this is not about flashing bikini bodies — in Marley & Me Aniston wears a demure red one-piece, which is no accident). In rom world, everything and everyone looks good without being too glamorous or youthful or interesting.

Still, the real draw of these movies is, specifically, Jennifer Aniston. She is the embodiment of the formula — pretty yet plain, modern yet old-fashioned through and through — but she is also the average woman in the audience. You know that every time she puts on a wedding dress or a bridesmaid’s dress (as she does in her two films currently on release), she is thinking: “I am frigging 40. I need a frigging baby and a decent guy who isn’t an asshole. This sucks and I’ve had it. Who has a life like this anyway? Nobody. And my knees aren’t going to hold up in shorts indefinitely.”

Honestly, I could watch her for ever.

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