Overboard with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell?
I think the feel of that movie is a bit different, just because Goldie Hawn’s character is a bitch and isn’t actually into Kurt Russell until near the end of the film. If you think too hard about the premise, it’s actually quite unpleasant
That’s it exactly. Why the hell was I thinking it had Patrick Duffy in it. Or thinking about Patrick Duffy at all.
I need to go scrub myself until my flesh bleeds now.
That essay reminds me why I like “The Breakup” so much. It’s a movie that says that some relationships just aren’t fixable no matter how grown-up the guy becomes, or how less uptight and waxed the girl becomes.
Overboard is just an updated Taming of the Shrew.
And isn’t the whole “taming” idea in these movies just a reversal of the old “get the woman to take care of me” only now it’s “get the guy to actually get a job?”
While in general I dislike these films, I’d like to thank them for lowering the romantic expectations of a generation of young women.
Remember, when in doubt, girls, reduce your standards.
My wife always bitches about the disparity in attractiveness between the two genders in these films. Oddly enough, she liked Knocked Up despite herself.
What’s really odd is that these are basically romantic comedies aimed at guys. “Slacker guy scores hot babe” is a guy fantasy: they’re like the Hollywood equivalent of anime harem comedies. Seriously, if she has her pick of the entire panoply of Hollywood leading men, what woman is gonna daydream about snagging Ben Stone or Jimmy Fallon?
Um, so he didn’t buy the romance angle of Knocked Up? I felt like there were more than enough dick jokes to keep things afloat.
Well, it’s about time women learned that! I agree with Chuck Klosterman’s essay in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs that the movie “Say Anything” raised the bar way too high. Women need to realize that not all the slacker men are wonderful Lloyd Dobblers, who will always do or say the right thing in the end.
Hey, “Say Anything” was pretty much a slacker romantic comedy, too, now that I think about it…
Ah, but that’s not the female fantasy. The male fantasy is to nail a chick who’s way out of your league. The female fantasy in these movies is to take a guy who’s a total loser (like the one sitting beside her in the theater) and turn him into a good husband/father/provider/listener/whatever.
That was an excellent description of Claudette Colbert. What a beauty.
Many of the films mentioned in the article don’t seem to be romantic comedies. The author is really stretching the definition.
I suppose School of Rock can be a romantic comedy if Jack Black was chasing Rock and Roll and trying to win it over.
Wedding Crashers, 40 Year Old Virgin, Animal House, Dodgeball, Airplane, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle … all romantic comedies? Really? A love arc does not make for a romantic comedy … well it shouldn’t.
Well, the writer is talking about comedy more generally, I just shorthanded it for the title.
That’s an excellent question, Funkman, and I found myself wondering the same thing. What bothered me about Knocked Up (and Eagle vs. Shark, incidentally, although it was a more trifling movie) was that it essentially glorified negligence in a relationship. Seth Rogan’s character was abusive, inconsiderate, and puerile, yet the movie expected us to root for him. Considering they were about to have a child, I was uncomfortable with the situation, even though some of the jokes were funny and all four lead actors were excellent (Seth Rogan rocks playing pretty much the same character in Pineapple Express, which opens next month!).
But Punch-Drunk Love is a bit different. It certainly fits in with Denby’s analysis. But I think it’s played less for laughs and more as a weird PT Anderson character study that happens to involve a romance. But the point in Punch-Drunk Love isn’t that the relationship forces Barry Egan to grow up. Instead, it empowers him so much that he’s able to walk from Los Angeles to Nevada in a single edit!
-Tom
This is a very good point.
Basically, realistic movies about relationships wouldn’t be comedies. People are complicated bundles of ulterior motives, like 80% of us are assholes, and 95% of us are too stupid to know what’s good for us. People don’t learn pithy little lessons from single events, most of the time we rationalize the negative result as bad luck or someone else’s fault. Nobody wants to see a movie where the likeable slacker develops himself into a grownup and then the hot chick he’s had a crush on since high school ends up fucking her douchebag ex-boyfriend, or where the likeable slacker gets a bit too irreverant at his awesome laid-back job and ends up getting fired and has to move back in with his parents so he plays WoW for 80 hours a week in the basement rather than have to deal with the social stigma of explaining his situation. Whew.
My pet project is one day write a romantic comedy with Dwight Yoakum’s character from Sling Blade as the lead.
Well put.
You could write a comedy about realistic human relationships with stupid assholes as the subjects, but it wouldn’t be romantic. The romance comes from the two mis-matched characters working out their differences and realizing by the end that they are meant to be together.
That’s the fantasy, that sometimes you get the happy ending even though you don’t really deserve it. And that love is more about fate than compromise, communication and all that other unfun stuff from real life relationships. If you meet the right person, then everything will just work itself out. No matter how hard you try, if it’s meant to be you can’t screw it up.
What about 50 First Dates?
You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought. I like romantic comedies even less as a result. I think you just did me a huge favor.
I think “journalists” who try and read too much into what amount to popcorn movies should be cockpunched.
These are the same types of choggle pantsers who are claiming that Mr. Rogers spoiled a generation, they just have a different axe to grind.
OK how ‘bout Catherine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckart in No Reservations. She pulls a tablecloth out from under diners’ dishes she is so mad.
A top notch female chef’s life is turned upside-down when she must care of her niece after her sister is killed. She now has to adapt to a different lifestyle and uses food as a means to express her roller-coaster life.
Mmmm can’t wait