Just for the record

Abstract

Just for the Record is a sapphic romantic comedy with a hint of a coming-of-age story that follows Tessa, a tightly wound, classically trained pianist and Aeryn, a free-spirited, lapsed poet working a dead-end job at her family's record shop. After suffering a personal setback, Tessa moves abroad to pursue her songwriting dreams where she stumbles into a meet-cute-turned-disaster and lands an unexpected job at the very same record shop. The two women immediately butt heads over their differences in music and life choices but come to realise they have much to learn from each other.

With the help of a chaotic circle of friends, and ghosts of relationships past working to throw them off-key, Tessa and Aeryn must navigate their differences and discover a new rhythm in music and in love, unless one false note can silence what they’ve built for good.

Just for the Record was written to celebrate the style and occasionally absurd tropes of romantic comedies from the 90s and early 2000s, reshaping them for a modern audience. I grew up loving these films and wanted to write my own spin on the genre with a positive sapphic story filled with relatable queer characters.

While sapphic stories were present in romantic comedies in the 90s and early 2000s, portrayals of heterosexual relationships were far more common. The handful of films that did exist tended to reinforce harmful stereotypes, so my goal was to highlight the love between these two women without the burden of worn caricatures of queer identities or an overt emphasis on their gender. Tessa and Aeryn simply fall in love, through a series of touching and comedic moments, much in the way of the ‘golden era’ of classic romantic comedies.

Date of Award	2 Dec 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of St Andrews
Supervisor	Johnny McKnight (Supervisor)