Romantic Comedy:The Same but Different

Lucy: "Things could be the same if things were different."
Jerry: "Things are different, except in a different way."
Lucy (Irene Dunne) & Jerry (Cary Grant) Warriner in Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937)

There is a sparkling jewel of a scene in the formulaic Two Weeks Notice, the meet-lose-get story of Lucy (Sandra Bullock), an attorney with a cause, and George (Hugh Grant), her suave but puerile Croesus of a client.

Lucy and George are in a restaurant, talking about upcoming interviews for Lucy's replacement. Without even a moment's interruption to their discussion, Lucy and George plunge into what seems to be a long-established ritual. He fishes the ice cubes out of his water and puts them in her glass. She takes out the inside of her bread roll and places it on his side plate. The waiter brings their orders. They are identical. She promptly removes the sprouts from the top of his food and adds them to her own, as he rids her dish of all beets but one. "Got a beet. Beet, beet," she whines, pointing at the overlooked offender, and he hastens to take the last beet away.

What does this scene communicate to us?

Dialog (surface structure): How to go about finding Lucy's replacement.
Subtext: Lucy and George are really close. (Wouldn't they make a lovely couple?)
Means of communicating subtext: Visual
Impact on (cinematically literate and probably jaded) audience: Direct and immediate.

If only more and more scenes in more and more romantic comedies shone with such economy and visual storytelling...

Personally, I am not keen on Cassandras who prophesy the decline and fall of the romantic comedy (or, for that matter, of movies in general). I am instantly tempted to say, "Get off your high horse and get a movie made." Every time a romantic comedy moves me and thrills me and makes me laugh and keeps me interested from fade-in to fade-out, I dismiss the voices of gloom and doom as just plain silly. However, there are times when I exit a theater with a hollow feeling in my stomach and a sense of "been there, seen that", along with the realization that I may have had a few laughs, but got nothing out of the movie for keeps. And these hollow times seem to be outnumbering the good, fulfilling ones. Fast.

With ever-increasing pressure weighing on mainstream film-making, screenwriters remember only too well that a creative risk is also a financial risk, because the fundamental things apply when the box office opens. Now, there is nothing wrong or evil about marketability. After all, writers do not write a screenplay in order to garner congratulatory pats on the back after private readings to their circle of family and friends. They write a screenplay so that millions of people might be willing to spend money to see their movie and then tell everyone they know what a great movie it is. A screenplay is a commodity, but this does not negate or contradict the need for authenticity, artistic value, and lasting emotional impact. The revelation that is the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an obvious case in point.

If we try to apply the mystery genre dichotomy, a romantic comedy appears to be more of a howdunit than a whodunit. We already know that the story will be about the impact of love on the two main characters, and are curious to see what odds they will beat and what choices they will make. More often than not, even the ending comes as no surprise, but can be inferred from casting choices: What are the chances that Cary Grant, Harrison Ford, George Clooney, Richard Gere, or Hugh Grant will not get the girl? In the same vein, we would be hard-pressed to find an alternative universe where Carole Lombard, Katharine Hepburn, Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, or Kate Hudson do not end up with the man of their dreams.

To sum up: We have an industry that is on the lookout for hot commodities to sell; a genre that wears its happy ending on its sleeve; and an audience that wants the "same" thrills in "different" ways. And they wouldn't mind fries with that, either.

How do we reconcile these three requirements? Where do we go to find out what it is exactly that romantic comedy audiences want?

How about consulting someone outside the screenwriting community?

In the 2000 Modern Library Edition of her Booker Prize winning novel Possession, novelist A.S. Byatt writes: "Art does not exist for politics, or for instruction -- it exists primarily for pleasure, or it is nothing. It can do the other things if it gives pleasure..." [my italics]

Movies in general, and romantic comedies in particular, are expected to be entertaining. They are supposed to be fun.

Then why do so many movies taste flat as soon as the cork of publicity pops off?

This is because fun is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a movie to stand out. We also need substance. Fun & substance. Now we are getting somewhere.

Let's go back to the whodunit vs. howdunit dichotomy. Could it be that the genre appears to be falling short of authenticity because in focusing on the "how" we neglect the "who"? Are depth and richness of character frequently sacrificed to the urgency of throwing together a "high-concept" construct?

In my opinion, "high-concept" and "character-driven" should not be mutually exclusive. Isn't "Groundhog Day" high-concept? Isn't Phil a richly sketched, realistic character? I should think that the answer to both questions is affirmative.

Once we have a firm grasp on the characters' personality and needs, there are as many ways to breathe life into the meet-lose-get pattern as there are romantic comedies (not counting the ones waiting to be written).

Some writers twist and turn the pattern itself. In Sleepless in Seattle the main characters meet a few minutes before the end of the movie. The remarriage comedies of the '30s and '40s (The Awful Truth, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story) start shortly before or after the guy has met, got and lost his girl, and is now intent on getting her back. (Cary Grant pulled this off with his trademark panache in all three examples.) Others opt for a generous dollop of slapstick/screwball, often juxtaposing a goofy and an uptight character (My Man Godfrey, Bringing Up Baby, Barefoot in the Park, What's Up, Doc?, Arthur). For others still, the world is not enough, so they seek new thrills in the supernatural/metaphysical and SF (I Married a Witch, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Heaven Can Wait, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Defending Your Life, Switch, Truly Madly Deeply, Groundhog Day, What Women Want, Kate and Leopold).

The timescale of the plot can range from one day (Roman Holiday, One Fine Day), to two weeks (Two Weeks Notice), to nine months (Nine Months) to 26 years of one-night stands at the rate of one stand per year (Same Time Next Year). The romantic plot may be conceived, complicated, and resolved in locations as variegated as Elizabethan England (Shakespeare in Love), the White House (Dave, The American President), parallel universes of reality and fiction (Alex and Emma), or even a jealous husband's imagination (Unfaithfully Yours) or a lover's gray matter as all memories of his beloved are being erased (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Human relationships may be dissected in a confined locale (Private Lives, The Shop Around the Corner, Butterflies Are Free, Love Among the Ruins) or playfully touched upon across a multitude of "case studies" in an open romantic landscape (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually).

Lawlessness and imminent physical danger raise the stakes of sexual tension, suspense, and empathy (Trouble in Paradise, The Thin Man, To Catch a Thief, Charade, True Romance, The Mexican), while "triangle stories" feed the voyeuristic appetite inherent in human nature (The Talk of the Town, Sabrina, Broadcast News, The Truth About Cats & Dogs, Keeping the Faith).

The above sampler is indicative of the vast palette of hues available to screenwriters in portraying the capriciousness of the laws of attraction. How could it be otherwise? The subject matter has universal appeal. The unstoppable Judy of What's Up, Doc? has nailed it down: "Hey, kiddo, you can't fight a tidal wave." Writers don't want to fight it, but they do need to harness it and funnel it into the labyrinthine ducts and canals of dramatic acts, scenes, and sequences, of character arcs and catalysts, reversals and climaxes, turning points, midpoints, and points of no return. Somehow.

From formulaic to experimental, from art-house to all-time hit, and from feel-good to poignant, romantic comedies will always seduce us because they provide the most direct look at our human condition. Or because they satisfy our craving for ideal love. Or simply because, in the words of the delectably neurotic Alvy Singer, we "need the eggs."