John C. Spurlock writes a comprehensive and astute assessment of David Shumway’s book Modern Love: Romance, Intimacy, and the Marriage Crisis.  Spurlock synthesizes Shumway’s study of modern relationships and the development of romantic love over past few centuries.  Shumway, a professor of English and Literary and Cultural Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, analyzes the transformation of the discourse of romance and the narrative form of romantic love.  He relies on “historical work on the family, sexuality, courtship, and marriage… show[ing] that an important shift in the understanding and uses of romance appears in the late 18^th and early 19^th century.”  He asserts that novels were the main “carriers of romantic discourse” in the 19^th century and that as a shift to the increase of personal expectations from marriage occurred, so did the rate of divorce, which led to the so-called marriage crisis.  Shumway studies the marriage crisis through the frames of intimacy and romance.  Throughout the twentieth century, the discourse of romance, love, marriage, and intimacy continued to change and the idea of love repeatedly reinvented itself.  These shifts in discourse were reflected through the literature and culture of the time.  Advice writers became prevalent and the new connotations of love and romance were depicted in the development of the screwball comedy.  In the way that literature was a carrier of romantic discourse in the late 18^th and 19^th centuries, film also became such a carrier in the 20^th century.  As the marriage crisis became a more serious issue due to the transformation of the idea of modern love and the increasing divorce rate, these advice writers and films that addressed marriage and romance began to play larger roles in society.  Shumway explores the challenges associated with achieving the 20^th century ideal of intimacy by observing popular and timely films such as Annie Hall (1977) and When Harry Met Sally (1989).  These films provide insight into the culturally accepted definitions of such ideals as intimacy, romance, and love, while also revealing the subtexts associated with these ideals.  This article does a remarkable job of synthesizing a convoluted and complex body of literature, but it is still not as sufficient or comprehensive as Shumway’s actual text.  In terms of the article’s relevancy to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, the article does not address Annie Hall in detail, but it does demonstrate how such a film can both reflect and generate cultural ideals including love, intimacy, and romance, which is arguably the most important role of the film.