Nov/092
Couples Retreat: Not Dark Enough
COUPLES RETREAT is a romantic comedy about four couples – two are having martial troubles, one guy is newly divorced and dating a woman too young for him, and one couple is solid. Making this concept into a romantic comedy is problematic because a story about couples considering divorce isn’t romantic. We don’t have the beats of falling in love. While theoretically we could see the couples reconnect, that is not the structure of the movie. Instead, the events at the resort drive them further apart. Jason (Jason Bateman) can’t stop over-thinking and over-structuring everything, irritating Cynthia (Kristen Bell). Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis) aren’t focused on each other, but finding people to sleep with. Shane (Faizon Love) can’t keep up with his girlfriend Trudy (Kali Hawk). Even Dave (Vince Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Akerman) who love each other, start questioning their marriage. After spending the whole movie fighting without any romantic moments, in the third act everyone realizes that they still love each other. Even Shane miraculously reunites with his ex-wife, who declares her love for him. This happy ending feels forced and unearned. Other than Dave & Ronnie who are clearly still in love, the other couples do not seem to be meant for each other. Furthermore, the happy ending takes the bite out of the movie.
I think the movie would have been much stronger if not every couple finished the retreat successfully. COUPLES RETREAT wants to be a fun exploration of the pros and cons of marriage. Dave is the emotional heart of the movie. He has several wonderful speeches where he talks about how much he loves his wife and wants to be married. It would have been a more powerful movie if the humor were darker and more extreme as each couple explored their point of view of marriage, love, & fidelity. I think that COUPLES RETREAT is a dark comedy trying to be a romantic comedy. I enjoyed this movie, but it got mixed reviews. I think that the tonal shifts were the problem. Remember not every comedy about romance is a romantic comedy. When you have a great idea like a comedy set at a couples retreat, let the idea determine the genre instead of trying to force it into one.
Aug/091
Romantic Comedy vs. Romance
I just saw 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, which was a charming, sweet movie. People are calling it a romantic comedy and I disagree – I think it is a funny romance. Romantic comedies and romances are kissing cousins. Both are about two people falling in love, but they are different. And it is possible for a movie to be funny, but not be a traditional romantic comedy. What is the difference? In Shakespearean terms comedies have happy endings and tragedies have unhappy ones. But for modern romances and rom-coms it is a little murkier.
Romantic comedies always end with the couple together. No exceptions. Think about it. Meg always ends up with Tom. Hugh always ends up with his co-star. Ah, but what about MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING? Julia ends up dancing with her gay best friend while the love of her life marries someone else. I submit that MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING is not a rom-com, but a funny movie set around a wedding. It’s a transformational story as Julia, who was too cool for school, realizes the importance of being open and vulnerable. A recent movie with the same premise, MADE OF HONOR, is a romantic comedy because Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan declare their love and get married.
In 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, Tom and Summer do not live happily ever after. (I’m not spoiling anything. The narrator tells us this in the first five minutes.) It is true that in many of the great cinematic love stories the couple does not end up together – CASABLANCA, TITANIC, THE WAY WE WERE, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. However, true love can triumph too. BEAUTY & THE BEAST, LAST OF THE MOHICANS, MOONSTRUCK, AN OFFICER & A GENTLEMAN. You can see from this list that romances vary greatly both in tone and ending. While 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, MOONSTRUCK, & BEAUTY AND THE BEAST all have funny moments and even scenes, at their core they are dramas.
Romances have the risk of heartbreak driving the story. Will the two lovers get together or be torn apart? The stakes are huge. In romantic comedies the question is not whether the lovers will get together, but how they will recognize that they love each other. The danger is hurt feelings and miscommunications, never heartbreak. That is part of the appeal of the genre, a guaranteed happy ending and love triumphant.
Finally, the obstacles keeping the lovers apart are much smaller in romantic comedies. It’s often that one or both are afraid to tell the other how they feel – TWO WEEKS NOTICE, MADE OF HONOR. Another common obstacle is a bet or a lie – HOW TO LOSE A GUY, FAILURE TO LAUNCH. The obstacles in romances are much bigger – a sinking ship in TITANIC, World War II in CASABLANCA, societal prejudice in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. Even smaller scale stories have big obstacles. The gulf of class differences in THE WAY WE WERE and AN OFFICER & A GENTLEMAN. Family disapproval in MOONSTRUCK. A young woman barely hanging onto her sanity in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S. And in 500 DAYS OF SUMMER Tom faces the biggest obstacle of all, Summer just doesn’t love him the way he loves her.
It’s important to understand the difference between these two genres and know which one your story is. Remember just because it’s funny, doesn’t mean it’s automatically a romantic comedy.
Aug/092
Opposites Attract: Romantic Comedies
I just saw THE UGLY TRUTH and it was ugly. There is nothing worse than a mediocre or bad romantic comedy and that is what we usually get. In my opinion romantic comedies are the most difficult genre to write because they are all about character and dialogue. The story is always the same. Guy and girl meet, but for some reason they can’t immediately be together so they spend the movie lying and arguing until they realize they love each other. For simplicity’s sake the lovers are almost always polar opposites, giving lots of opportunity for conflict. In the movies, opposites really do attract.
For some reason women in romantic comedies are often uptight, control freaks. The danger is that these characters come across as shrewish and unlikable. Abby (Katherine Heigl) is indeed an uptight control freak. These qualities make her a great producer of a morning news show, but a terrible date. She not only tells her date that she has a checklist of her perfect guy, but she prints out talking points for their dinner. As a side note, she makes a point of telling him she likes to drink red wine, but we see her drink white throughout the movie. If you’re going to give a character a habit make sure it is consistent. None of this is remotely believable or funny. I doubt a woman smart enough to be a news producer (let alone someone who looks like Katherine Heigl) would be this crazy on a blind date. The control freak persona can work when it is presented as quirky and endearing with some vulnerability underneath, for example Sally in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. In THE PROPOSAL Margaret (Sandra Bullock) is uptight and mean, but we see her in silly situations (trying to get the dog back from an eagle) and vulnerable ones (trying on the wedding dress.) Both Sally and Margaret are well-rounded charming characters. Abby is not. Her control freak persona is not grounded in reality. Further more, we never see her be vulnerable. A scene or two of her longing for love, even being thrown off by something crude that Mike (Gerard Butler) says would go a long way towards making her likeable.
On the other hand, Mike the boorish host is not extreme enough. We learn that he is really a good guy early on when we see him with his nephew. His advice helps rekindle the married anchors’ marriage. He seems genuinely trying to help people, instead of lude and crude. Since he is such a softie, he immediately falls for Abby while he is playing Cyrano. We know this because he glances longingly at her a lot. The movie would have been much more interesting if he was a real slickster who believed what he was preaching – relationships are trouble and women are only good for sex. It is through spending all the time with Abby coaching her that he has his first real relationship with a woman and develops feelings. A guy going from louse to lover would have been entertaining and compelling to watch. He would still be the devoted uncle, which would add to the mystery. The audience would wonder who is this guy and is he meant for Abby.
Jul/091
Commitment Issues
The blank page, the blinking cursor is what every writer faces every day. Deciding what to write, deciding to write is a daily challenge. For me I had big commitment issues in deciding what to write about in this blog. Would I have something to say that people would be interested in? Would I have enough to say? The answer is just do it. If you think too much about writing you’ll never start. Get something down. It won’t be perfect. That is what rewriting is for. The sentence could always be smoother, the description more evocative, the characters more compelling. That is what this blog is about, story problems that I see in movies and how I would fix them. I will offer my opinion, conjecture, and insight into movies. What works and what doesn’t. How and why certain story choices were made. I hope to spark debate and maybe teach something along the way.
Since I shared my commitment issues with you, it seems fitting that the first movie I discuss is a romantic comedy. Just like in real life, commitment issues play a part in on screen romance. In The Proposal, Margaret (Sandra Bullock) convinces her long suffering assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her so that she can stay in the country. This set up is a genius way to force two people together who can’t stand each other. Or rather Andrew can’t stand Margaret, who is known as the Wicked Witch around the office. Margaret doesn’t think of Andrew at all except as a minion at her beck and call. When the two spend the weekend at his parents’ house in Alaska, they get to know one another. Andrew has lots of juicy issues. He is the only son of a Kennedy-like clan whose father expects him to stop this book nonsense and come home to run the family business. We find out that Margaret is so hard because her parents died when she was sixteen and she has been on her own ever since. While this is a compelling backstory, my biggest complaint with the movie is that she thaws too easily. Her second night in Alaska she lets her guard down and starts spewing personal details to Andrew including about her parents. This shift would be more believable if we had seen some hint of vulnerability in New York. Margaret is such a megabitch we don’t care about her. She tells Andrew that after a co-worker called her a bitch, she went into the bathroom and cried. It would have been nice to see that. In a good romantic comedy the audience should be rooting for the characters to be together from the moment they meet. We know they are perfect for each other; the movie is about watching them figure it out.
Along these same lines, it would be nice if Margaret helped Andrew heal his rift with his dad. He helps her loosen up and become more vulnerable. She should also impact him. Maybe she stands up to his dad. It could be as simple as her bragging what a great editor he is, an asset to the company. Right now it is the grandmother that brings the two men together. While this is a funny and touching scene, it would be more romantic if we saw the transformative power of Margaret’s love. This reconciliation could also tie into her own pain over the loss of her parents. She wishes she had a father to fight with. When Margaret finally admits that she has feelings for Andrew, she overcomes her commitment issues to be vulnerable.