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.