Valentine’s Day is once again upon us, and you know what that means: rom-coms. Cute, cheerful, when-Harry-met-Sally-ish rom-coms, full of good-looking people who should just kiss already. Here are four new/newish streaming romantic comedies, rated on a scale of one to five candy hearts. Wishing you a romantic Valentine’s Day in which nobody gives you a handbag made of chocolate! (Read on.)

‘People We Meet on Vacation’

(Netflix)

The premise: Based on Emily Henry’s bestselling novel (which the author says was inspired by “When Harry Met Sally…”), this is the story of Poppy (Emily Bader) and Alex (Tom Blyth), two very good-looking people who are just good friends, really they are, yes they are … until they’re not. Anyway, they take a lot of vacations together, because Poppy is one of those magical travel journalists who’s always bopping off to gorgeous places and lavish hotels and yet never seems to actually write anything. Where do I go to apply for this job?

The setting: Lots of places, though the entire film was shot in New Orleans and Barcelona, Spain, the latter of which apparently looks a lot like Tuscany, Italy (where Poppy and Alex and their ill-fated partners hang out in a ridiculously photogenic villa). All of the scenery is lovely, even a scene in which our two non-lovers await the results of a pregnancy test on a picturesquely windblown cobblestone street in the middle of the night, as one does.

The chemistry: Well, they’re not exactly Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, but Bader and Blyth are reasonably cute together, despite her character being written to be deeply annoying (and obsessed with Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl”; what decade is Poppy from, exactly?). The problem here is that, duh, Harry and Sally/Alex and Poppy are absolutely going to be together, so why is this movie so very long? Did we really need so many breakups, or so many shots of Alex showcasing his manly decolletage, or Poppy, who we’re repeatedly told hates to run, frantically running after Alex for blocks and blocks and practically giving herself a stroke when she could have, I don’t know, just waited for him to come back after his run? Yes, the point of a rom-com is to throw a few obstacles in the way of True Love (and to give us a Billy Crystal-style running scene near the end), but ideally those obstacles should be reasonably entertaining.

The other people: Well, there’s Alex’s cute younger brother (Miles Heizer) and his even cuter husband-to-be (Tommy Do), Poppy’s very elegant editor (Jameela Jamil, last seen being a very elegant third wheel in the Netflix Christmas movie “A Merry Little Ex-Mas”) and Alex’s parents (Alan Ruck, Molly Shannon). But really, the best supporting character is an extremely slinky chartreuse dress worn by Poppy to Alex’s brother’s wedding — a garment that almost deserves its own franchise.

The life lesson learned: It’s always worth rewatching “When Harry Met Sally…”

Rating: 2 hearts

‘Relationship Goals’

(Prime Video)

The premise: Leah (Kelly Rowland), a talented producer at a New York morning news show, is dismayed when her ex, Jarrett (Cliff “Method Man” Smith), gets the promotion to showrunner she expected for herself. But thanks to a book called “Relationship Goals,” they … well, come on, you know exactly what happens.

The setting: Behind the scenes at a show rather like “The Morning Show,” but with slightly less drama, though I did keep wondering whether Jennifer Aniston was going to show up and yell at someone.

The chemistry: It’s good! It’s actually pretty great! Rowland is charmingly funny on her own (there’s an adorable bit in an early scene where she flummoxes herself by accidentally hooting like an owl), but she and Smith (who establishes his own charm bona fides by wearing a cardigan with a heart on it and cutely/annoyingly singing in the car) click perfectly, particularly when having to do the required-by-the-rules-of-rom-coms scenes of being mad at each other. You never doubt for a second that Leah and Jarrett are meant for each other — but that’s part of the fun. Also fun: the screenplay, which is full of good throwaway lines. My favorite was when Leah, plotting to overthrow Jarrett at work, tells her father that she has to go because “I have a man to destroy.” Her father, his eyes lighting up: “You’re dating someone?”

The other people: Leah comes equipped with an excellent set of two best friends, Brenda (Robin Thede) and Treese (Annie Gonzalez), who eat Pringles with Leah and give her all the right advice. “Have you never seen a rom-com?” shrieks one of them near the end. “You’ve gotta make a grand gesture!” (She does.) Also charming are Leah’s assistant (Ryan Jamaal Swain), who knows everything because he belongs to the Assistant’s Inner Circle of Secrets & Gossip and who rightly admires Leah’s “promotion shoes,” and Leah’s very sweet dad, Jim (Dennis Haysbert).

The life lesson learned: If your ex shows up in a cardigan with a heart on it, just get back together with him already.

Rating: 4 hearts

‘An Unexpected Valentine’

(Hallmark+/Netflix)

The premise: Hannah (Lacey Chabert) and Finn (Robert Buckley), who meet when she’s a passenger in his ride-sharing car, end up spending Valentine’s Day together as they race across Manhattan trying to find the owner of a left-behind engagement ring.

The setting: “Manhattan” (actually Vancouver, British Columbia, where this film was shot), a magical version of New York City in which convenient parking is available right in front of every place Hannah and Finn visit.

The chemistry: Chabert, last seen playing a woman in love with a snowman (“Hot Frosty”), here plays a “food product development scientist” whose greatest idea is a chocolate purse. Seriously, an actual handbag made out of chocolate. This distracted me for the entire movie — what, you put stuff in it? Doesn’t it melt? Or do you just eat it all in one go? Isn’t there a reason why no one has thought of this before? — but let it be said that Chabert and Buckley are pros at this sort of thing and make Hannah and her cute sheer skirt and Finn with his iron jawline quite charming. I found myself wishing these two had a better screenplay to play with; instead, they just drive around a lot and have a crisis involving cookies, which I suppose is the kind of crisis you want on Valentine’s Day. Bonus points, though, for the “When Harry Met Sally…” run by Finn near the end of the movie, through the city’s (curiously empty) streets.

The other people: This one’s mostly a two-hander, despite a few other characters who are or are not the rightful owners of the engagement ring. I can’t remember a thing about them, unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately.

The life lesson learned: Hang on to your stuff when in an Uber, otherwise you might have to live through a version of this movie (but with worse parking).

Rating: 2.5 hearts

‘Hats Off to Love’

(Hallmark+/Netflix)

The premise: Hat designer Stella (Ginna Claire Mason) falls for a handsome horse trainer with the very rom-com name of Christian Fairchild (John Clarence Stewart) after being hired to design Kentucky Derby-appropriate hats for his socialite mother Rosalind (Holly Robinson Peete) so that she can win the Bradbury Hat Competition, which as far as I can tell is not an actual thing. Yes, there are a lot of hats in this movie, and I’ll absolutely confess that’s why I picked it and watched it, but I’m very sorry to report that most of the hats are hideous and look rather like every woman in this movie just decided to pile a bunch of random stuff on her head. Perhaps this is Stella’s trademark?

The setting: Louisville, Kentucky, a city where, apparently, unemployed hat designers and their assistant-hotel-manager roommates share palatial homes full of lavish floral arrangements and curious signs saying “Home,” as if they maybe needed a visual reminder.

The chemistry: Rather tepid! Stewart is charming, but Mason’s Stella always seems a little late to the party, though to be fair she’s not helped at all by the screenplay. This dialogue, for example, passes in this movie for a romantic exchange: Near the end, Christian says, fervently, “I’m so glad I found you,” to which Stella, looking a tad confused, says “You are?”

The other people: Peete, as Rosalind, swans around wearing various hats and doing her best with dialogue that requires her to get enthusiastic about “these ingenious little pastry boxes.” (There is a very dull subplot involving a scheming subordinate and, um, pastry crumbs, and honestly I’ve forgotten it already.) The closest thing this movie has to a villain is a good-looking dude named Davidson (Alex Trumble), whose name is always announced with an exclamation point (“Davidson!”) and who suddenly at the end turns into a sweetheart in a lavender suit, so all is forgiven. And let’s not forget the horses, whose performances are impeccable even when Stella starts inexplicably singing to them. (Mason is a Broadway veteran; perhaps it’s in her contract.)

The life lesson learned: Apparently it’s not too difficult to win the Bradbury Hat Competition?

Rating: 2 hearts

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Moira's guide to streaming rom-coms

1 heart - Not even worth hate-watching

2 hears - If there's nothing else to watch, try this

3 hearts - Watchable, some semblance of lot

4 hearts - Cute, heartwarming

5 hearts - Cult classic

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