The 'Notting Hill' effect on your love life

 

Not only can watching rom-coms like "Maid in Manhattan" and "You've Got Mail" rot your brain, but it can also throw a wrench in your love life.

So says a study from U.K. researchers, which found that folks who subject themselves to sappy meet-cute happily-ever-after movies have unrealistic and/or unhealthy expectations of real-life love. The Brit press has helpfully dubbed it "the 'Notting Hill' effect" after that 1999 Golden Globe-nominated flick.

Ah, another reason to point the finger at Hugh Grant. J'accuse!

Well, we could've saved the Family and Personal Relationships Laboratory at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh some paperwork and trouble and just shared that insight with them after a viewing this summer of the delightful brain poison that is "Sex and the City: The Movie." It follows in a long line of ridiculous but highly enjoyable flicks where girl gets swept off feet by "Perfect Man." Lots of fun, sure, but lots of brainwashing. We need a scientific study to tell us that?

Head researcher Dr. Bjarne Holmes thinks the cautionary head's-up bears repeating:

"We are not being killjoys -- we are not saying that people shouldn't watch these movies. But we are saying that it would be helpful if people were more aware and more critical of the messages in these films."

For more heartbreaking findings -- including an incongruous "Serendipity" vs. David Lynch face off -- go here.