Sister: Josh, are you okay?
Josh: I want to text Laura, but I don't know what to say.
Sister: You said it was an emergency.
Josh: Well, it is. I pretty like this girl, I don't want to blow it.
Sister: Oh, my God. I got it. Okay. "Laura." Period. "It's your stranger from the train."
Josh: (Gasps) Film reference.
Part of the transcript from Season 1 Episode 2 of Man Seeking Woman
The guy (Josh) is asking his sister to make a sentence for a girl he likes. She made a sentence and he was impressed by it saying Film reference. It seems like awesome. What's this meaning?
Best Answer
The first entry for reference in Longman might be helpful:
The reason it seems like it means "awesome" is because making a reference to a film or movie is the perfect thing to say to Laura to catch her interest. Josh is basically saying to his sister "Including a film reference in the text I'm going to send Laura is a great idea!" but that meaning is almost completely in the intonation of what he's saying instead of the actual words.
Often, a reference to a film or book is made in a way that only people familiar with that film or book will understand the reference. It's like a "secret handshake" that shows you are part of that group. So, if Josh thinks Laura might like Hitchcock movies, making a reference to the film "Strangers on a Train" and tying it to how they met (assuming they met on a subway train) would make him very interesting to her.
Some other examples of "film references" and how subtle they can be are listed in this article from Vulture which explains all of the references to other movies in the TV show "Stranger Things".