First off, I have to say that Mr. Malcolm’s List holds true to its trailer: it is indeed a period romcom. Granted it has some angst, but still, ROMCOM. The trailer doesn’t mislead you like Cyrano‘s did.

Mr. Malcolm’s List kicks off with absolutely gorgeous fly-overs of the English countryside at dusk. Not going to lie, I was a bit taken aback that the first scenes are of a girls finishing school, but this is origin story of where the main characters, Julia Thistlewaite and Selena Dalton, became friends. Once this was established, I thought it was excellent background information to lay the foundation for them being such good friends when they’re adults. Friends won’t go along with your crazy-pants revenge schemes, but best friends will.

All I have to say about Mr. Malcolm and his wifely list are that he and Viscount Anthony Bridgerton would get along smashingly. They could have both bemoaned the lack of eligible ladies that can meet their “not asking for that much” qualifications. It’s giving me Beauty & the Briefcase and Lane trying to find her “magic man” with her list of qualities.

In light of having a list, I find Jeremiah’s treatment of Julia awful, even for the time period. If Jeremiah is intent on finding a women with certain qualities, he’s doing an terrible job of it. He literally only talked to Julia about one specific law to see if she was knowledgeable about current events. He didn’t: 1) talk about other current events/state of the country to see if she knew about something other than agricultural laws, and 2) he didn’t try to compare her against other qualities on his list. Like, SIR, if you’re wanting to find a lady who meets all of these qualities, you have to talk to them about more than one thing per date.

However, more important than Mr. Malcolm’s list is the friendship between Julia and Selena and how this friendship changes throughout the story as the girls change too. I felt that as a person, Julia grew a lot during the movie. Selena didn’t have as much growing to do. I feel in Selena’s case, she just let herself shine through her outer shell a little more. However, even though Selena didn’t have much growing to do, I feel she helped Julia grow more. Julia is quite the selfish person throughout most of the movie, but you can see her start to have conflict with herself when she’s noticing that Selena and Jeremiah really do like each other. This tangled web of her feelings is only complicated further by Captain Henry Ossory, who was originally attempting to court Selena, but then started making moves on Julia. Selena, the voice of reason of the two girls, tries to nudge Julia toward being a better person, and Julia is the better for it.

Honestly, my favorite part of the movie is that Henry ends up falling in love with Julia, and still loves her after she pulls that switcheroo stunt, nearly ruining Selena’s future and happiness. This man saw Julia and her pettiest and worst and went, “Alright. Still love her, though. Work in progress.” He’s not going to be surprised when she’s difficult and awful because he’s seen it happen in real time. I like that he acknowledges and knows she’s an awful person, but also sees that she can be a good person too.

Not going to lie, I was quite disappointed that Selena didn’t push Jeremiah into the water during the garden scene. He deserved it twice over. Absolute poncy nitwit, that man. He did make up for it though: after having the sense verbally slapped into him by his mother, Jeremiah riding across the fields to intercept his lady love and beg her forgiveness. And we do so love when men admit their mistakes and beg forgiveness on their knees.

I do have to say that the unsung hero of this movie is Cassie. Absolutely so done with everyone’s shit, yet still puts up with them all and tries to help. The “I’m absolutely too old for this nonsense, but someone’s gotta be the reasonable one” friend of the group.

Now then, despite the well-rounded characters, the character growth throughout the movie, not to mention the wonderful costuming, I did see some TikToks and Tweets from people complaining about Mr. Malcolm’s List.

But don’t listen to them.

They’re a bunch of namby-pamby’s.