Is there a name for this movie trope?

Cafe Society
1

In just about every romantic comedy film ever made, there’s a montage scene near the end where the hero & heroine appear to have broken up for good, and they both go about their daily routines noticing how everything seems so bleak and dreary without the other person around anymore, while a song by Currently Popular Top 40 Artist plays over the scene – e.g. Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love” from Pretty Woman, or (to cite a non-R/C example) “Mad World” from Donnie Darko. Naturally, the subsequent scene is where they get back together and everyone lives happily ever after…

There’s gotta be a trope name for this, since it happens in EVERY SINGLE ROMANTIC COMEDY FILM EVER MADE… does anyone know?

2

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SadTimesMontage or even better http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LostLoveMontage

3

It’s a Sad Times Montage, with an overlap of Lost Love Montage.

4

ninja’d!

5

Those are close, but all examples listed use generic music instead of a song by Currently Popular Top 40 Artist. (The Currently Popular Top 40 Artist song is key to the trope I’m seeking.)

6

Sad Times Montage + Lost Love Montage + Nothing But Hits?

7

Most movies do not have a song or musical number in them these days*, but radio and music video play is a huge and crucial part of most movie marketing. So a pop artist is engaged to either write and perform a unique - but otherwise standalone - song for the movie, or a promising work from their newest catalog is licensed. This lets the marketing department tag on a radio push and viral video releases even though there’s no real connection between the song and the movie. Even the various James Bond title tracks are pretty nebulously connected, even if they are a unique pairing.

Putting such songs in the movie, under montages such as described above, is at least honest. I can think of more than a few movies where (other than some scoring lifted from the song), it doesn’t appear anywhere except over the end credits.

So the trope is “Studio Finds Way to Gouge More Money.” Hardly new.

  • Don’t argue. Just let it go, for ghod’s sakes.
8

Nobody lives Happily Ever After in Donnie Darko.

But then, it’s a non-RC, as you say.
Watch Daffy Darko instead.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/printthread.php?t=117411

9

I think, but can’t recall details, that all three Austin Powers movies had whiny musical interludes symbolizing Baby Boomers complaining about life:

  1. Austin’s sad because the icons of his youth (Hendrix, Joplin) are dead (they burnt out on their own excesses, get over it).
  2. Austin’s sad because he’s lost his mojo (you’re getting older, deal with it).
  3. Austin’s kinda bitter because “Daddy Wasn’t There” (he was off working - to save the world, no less - so you could have a better life, you ungrateful snot).
    The movies are otherwise enjoyable.