Living the Romantic Comedy

2024 RomCom Podcast

 

If you're a still a romantic (tough job these days), a lover and/or writer of these kinds of stories, or perhaps looking for an insomnia cure, you might check out this podcast: https://comedymasterclass.com/.../40-billy-mernit-the.../

The Hidden Heroine

It's that time of the year again. Everyone who's got a beating heart knows that as soon as February rolls around, there's a major holiday to be reckoned with, one that's come to symbolize the meaning of love and romance for America, if not the world.

I'm speaking, of course, about Groundhog Day (which this year on the numerically pleasing 02-02-22, we hear, bears news of more winter - how 2022 is that?).

Granted, there was a time, long ago (i.e. before 1993), when this holiday lacked the romantic associations since bestowed on it, due to the efforts of Danny Rubin, the late Harold Ramis and Bill Murray. But ever since the writer, director and star, respectively of Groundhog Day created what's now generally acknowledged as one of the great American movies of all time, February 2nd has become synonymous with romance and comedy.  In fact, when people ask me to name a couple of my favorite romantic comedies, this one invariably comes to mind.

What, you've never thought of this cinematic classic as a romantic comedy?  For shame.  I have it on unassailable authority that the film qualifies. For starters, it says so right on the DVD box's cover ("A romantic comedy fantasy that is Bill Murray's best screen performance" --  Gene Shalit). But look up the definition of romantic comedy in the definitive text's new edition on same, and you'll find (p.14) that "a romantic comedy is a comedy whose central plot is embodied in a romantic relationship" and that (p.15) "the central question posed by a romantic comedy is: 'Will these two individuals become a couple?'"

As you well know, when TV weatherman Phil Connors (Murray) gets inexplicably trapped in the same repeating February 2nd, his sole recourse to getting out of it becomes the object of his affections, producer Rita (Andie MacDowell); his salvation lies in the answer to their coupling question. (Screenwriting theorist sticklers may point out that the story's central question is really, Will Phil ever get out of February 2nd? To this I say, also true, because the movie is a rom-com hybrid --ibid, pp.21-28 -- a romantic comedy/high concept fantasy, and thus the couple/escape conflicts are intertwined. But let's stop boring our civilian readers, shall we? Thanks.)

Strange but true, there still exist deprived people who have not seen the movie Groundhog Day. If you are one of those poor souls, what better opportunity to improve the quality of your life, than to view it on the official Day itself? And even if you're one of the many enriched individuals who's seen it, Groundhog Day is a movie that you can watch over and over, and over, and over...

If you're a major Groundhog Day fan, you might even consider journeying to the scene of the crime: the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is having its annual celebration, and it promises to be quite a hoot. Such a trip was actually enjoyed byDay's writer and star before the movie was made, and therein lies a tale that speaks, I believe, to the true spirit of romance, or as we might say, what love's got to do with it.

Danny Rubin recounts the following in his illuminating interview accompanying an early draft of the screenplay in Scenario(Spring '95 issue, regrettably out of print). He talks of having been hired, fired and re-hired to work on the script, and when he, his wife Louise and kids were preparing to move from Los Angeles to New Mexico, getting a call from Bill Murray:

He says, "Do you realize that the day after tomorrow is Groundhog Day?"--"Yep."--"And do you realize that between the director, the producer, the star and the writer of this film, nobody has been to the festival at Punxsutawney?  Doesn't that seem wrong to you?"  And I said, "Absolutely.  And I think you should go, I think that will be a great thing."  And he said, "I think we should go."  And I said, "Bill, that's a really nice offer, sounds like fun, but I'm moving, I'm moving my family, we're up to our necks in boxes, I can't just abandon them and go off to Punxsutawney."  And he said, "Well, think about it and call me back.  Here's my number."  When I got off the phone, Louise asked who it was.  "Bill Murray," I said.  "He wants me to go to Punxsutawney tomorrow."  And she said, "Cool."  And I said I'd told him I couldn't do it.  She said, "Are you nuts?"  So I talked to [the studio] and they said, "We'll pay for the move, we'll get someone to help pack, we'll fly out a friend of your wife's to help her move in so you don't have to be there."

This level of support was very nice, and I embarked on the most surreal adventure of my professional life.  All of a sudden I'm flying in a private plane from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with Bill Murray and we're talking about the script.  We landed somewhere near Punxsutawney at 2:00 in the morning.  And there were fans out there waiting for him--it was supposed to be a secret...

Rubin goes on to say that he used a lot of what he saw there in the script. He'd originally spoken to the town's Chamber of Commerce and looked at their literature, but:

After we actually saw it, there was a whole different feel to it than we had imagined.  It was delightful, really delightful--a wonderful civic event.  We incorporated a lot of that into the movie...  Everyone there knew it was a goofy ritual--it was almost sophisticated in its hickyness.  What was so much fun about the festival is, it's the middle of the night, zero degrees, they've got bonfires going--and they're playing Beach Boys music.

Sometimes I read this excerpt to a screenwriting class when I'm talking about the inestimable value of research, to illustrate how really being there can make all the difference in writing a given project. But I quote it now in this pre-Valentine's Day context to highlight my favorite moment in Rubin's story, which is when Louise says, "Are you nuts?"

I just love that! Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling every time, because it seems to me that Danny Rubin's wife is the hidden heroine of the Groundhog Day saga. Love doesn't mean never having to say you're sorry.  It means having someone be able to say "Are you nuts?!" to you at a crucial moment. Love is sometimes about selflessness and saving loved ones from themselves -- which come to think of it, is kind of at the core of what the movie ended up being about, don't you think? 

Go watch it again, again, and see if you agree. And before that, you must see the Jeep commercial that... well, it's Groundhog Day: https://twitter.com/Jeep/status/1223924066417020929

Spending my days believing in impossible things and chasing them towards an inner truth, now that's a pretty good gig.

--Danny Rubin

(photograph at post's top by sabine)

The Hidden Heroine

It's that time of the year again. Everyone who's got a beating heart knows that as soon as February rolls around, there's a major holiday to be reckoned with, one that's come to symbolize the meaning of love and romance for America, if not the world.

I'm speaking, of course, about Groundhog Day (which this year on 02-02-21 has a nice numerical look to it).

Granted, there was a time, long ago (i.e. before 1993), when this holiday lacked the romantic associations since bestowed on it, due to the efforts of Danny Rubin, the late Harold Ramis and Bill Murray. But ever since the writer, director and star, respectively of Groundhog Day created what's now generally acknowledged as one of the great American movies of all time, February 2nd has become synonymous with romance and comedy.  In fact, when people ask me to name a couple of my favorite romantic comedies, this one invariably comes to mind.

What, you've never thought of this cinematic classic as a romantic comedy?  For shame.  I have it on unassailable authority that the film qualifies. For starters, it says so right on the DVD box's cover ("A romantic comedy fantasy that is Bill Murray's best screen performance" --  Gene Shalit). But look up the definition of romantic comedy in the definitive text's new edition on same, and you'll find (p.14) that "a romantic comedy is a comedy whose central plot is embodied in a romantic relationship" and that (p.15) "the central question posed by a romantic comedy is: 'Will these two individuals become a couple?'"

As you well know, when TV weatherman Phil Connors (Murray) gets inexplicably trapped in the same repeating February 2nd, his sole recourse to getting out of it becomes the object of his affections, producer Rita (Andie MacDowell); his salvation lies in the answer to their coupling question. (Screenwriting theorist sticklers may point out that the story's central question is really, Will Phil ever get out of February 2nd? To this I say, also true, because the movie is a rom-com hybrid --ibid, pp.21-28 -- a romantic comedy/high concept fantasy, and thus the couple/escape conflicts are intertwined. But let's stop boring our civilian readers, shall we? Thanks.)

Strange but true, there still exist deprived people who have not seen the movie Groundhog Day. If you are one of those poor souls, what better opportunity to improve the quality of your life, than to view it on the official Day itself? And even if you're one of the many enriched individuals who's seen it, Groundhog Day is a movie that you can watch over and over, and over, and over...

If you're a major Groundhog Day fan, you might even consider journeying to the scene of the crime: the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is having its annual celebration, and it promises to be quite a hoot. Such a trip was actually enjoyed byDay's writer and star before the movie was made, and therein lies a tale that speaks, I believe, to the true spirit of romance, or as we might say, what love's got to do with it.

Danny Rubin recounts the following in his illuminating interview accompanying an early draft of the screenplay in Scenario(Spring '95 issue, regrettably out of print). He talks of having been hired, fired and re-hired to work on the script, and when he, his wife Louise and kids were preparing to move from Los Angeles to New Mexico, getting a call from Bill Murray:

He says, "Do you realize that the day after tomorrow is Groundhog Day?"--"Yep."--"And do you realize that between the director, the producer, the star and the writer of this film, nobody has been to the festival at Punxsutawney?  Doesn't that seem wrong to you?"  And I said, "Absolutely.  And I think you should go, I think that will be a great thing."  And he said, "I think we should go."  And I said, "Bill, that's a really nice offer, sounds like fun, but I'm moving, I'm moving my family, we're up to our necks in boxes, I can't just abandon them and go off to Punxsutawney."  And he said, "Well, think about it and call me back.  Here's my number."  When I got off the phone, Louise asked who it was.  "Bill Murray," I said.  "He wants me to go to Punxsutawney tomorrow."  And she said, "Cool."  And I said I'd told him I couldn't do it.  She said, "Are you nuts?"  So I talked to [the studio] and they said, "We'll pay for the move, we'll get someone to help pack, we'll fly out a friend of your wife's to help her move in so you don't have to be there."

This level of support was very nice, and I embarked on the most surreal adventure of my professional life.  All of a sudden I'm flying in a private plane from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with Bill Murray and we're talking about the script.  We landed somewhere near Punxsutawney at 2:00 in the morning.  And there were fans out there waiting for him--it was supposed to be a secret...

Rubin goes on to say that he used a lot of what he saw there in the script. He'd originally spoken to the town's Chamber of Commerce and looked at their literature, but:

After we actually saw it, there was a whole different feel to it than we had imagined.  It was delightful, really delightful--a wonderful civic event.  We incorporated a lot of that into the movie...  Everyone there knew it was a goofy ritual--it was almost sophisticated in its hickyness.  What was so much fun about the festival is, it's the middle of the night, zero degrees, they've got bonfires going--and they're playing Beach Boys music.

Sometimes I read this excerpt to a screenwriting class when I'm talking about the inestimable value of research, to illustrate how really being there can make all the difference in writing a given project. But I quote it now in this pre-Valentine's Day context to highlight my favorite moment in Rubin's story, which is when Louise says, "Are you nuts?"

I just love that! Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling every time, because it seems to me that Danny Rubin's wife is the hidden heroine of the Groundhog Day saga. Love doesn't mean never having to say you're sorry.  It means having someone be able to say "Are you nuts?!" to you at a crucial moment. Love is sometimes about selflessness and saving loved ones from themselves -- which come to think of it, is kind of at the core of what the movie ended up being about, don't you think? 

Go watch it again, again, and see if you agree. And before that, you must see the Jeep commercial that... well, it's Groundhog Day: https://twitter.com/Jeep/status/1223924066417020929

Spending my days believing in impossible things and chasing them towards an inner truth, now that's a pretty good gig.

--Danny Rubin

(photograph at post's top by sabine)

'Rona Rom-Coms #10: SHAUN OF THE DEAD

[This Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance series suggests good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them suck.]

In the "apropos" category, Shaun of the Dead may be the ultimate Stay Inside! metaphor movie for our moment. And for ye of narrow minds who question my genre classification (romantic comedy?!), well excuuuuuse me:

Our story begins with Shaun (Simon Pegg) getting dumped by girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) because he's stuck in a passive rut. Can boy win back his girl? Well, due to a local health crisis, Shaun has to fetch Liz (along with friends and family) and find her a safe haven. He thus proves he can be an active hero who's worthy of her love. Oh, wait, did I leave something out? Right: the zombies. The movie's first act gag, a gift that keeps on giving, is that Shaun's so caught up in his romantic drama with Liz that he's slow on the uptake re: said "health crisis," not realizing that London is under deadly attack from crazed, hungry zombies who're feasting on humans, and multiplying.

Equal parts rom-com and horror pic send-up, Shaun of the Dead should provide the LOLs needed for us Covid-19 Spring of 2020 couch potatoes. If you've never seen it, now's the perfect time, and if you're already a fan? Well, relative to what we're dealing with, zombie hordes have never looked quite so good.

'Rona Rom-Coms #9: THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

  
[This Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance series suggests good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them suck.]

My last pick for a "getaway" movie was the musical Enchanted, a rom-com suitable for watching with kids. This time for that same category, I'm happy to offer up a truly adult, sophisticated, totally Not A Guilty Pleasure movie: The Kids Are All Right, a bisexual/lesbian love story directed by Lisa Cholodenko. 

The film features five intriguingly complicated protagonists (four of them etched indelibly within its first five minutes) facing contemporary issues that have nothing to do with plague or isolation, so for a change of current pace, let yourself get swept up in a whole other set of Modern Romantic Problems, explored in a sharp, wryly funny screenplay by Cholodenko and co-writer Stuart Blumberg. The movie is unusually alive to character-driven nuance, with finely tuned performances by its trio of leads (Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo) illuminating the absurd contradictions found at each all-too-human point of its central triangle.

A Rom-Com For People Who Hate Rom-Coms, it's also a treat for people who love them, and in fact, if your kids are 18 or older, a movie your modern family can watch together, too.

'Rona Rom-Coms #8: THE APARTMENT

[This Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance series suggests good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them suck.]

When I cite Billy Wilder's The Apartment as particularly apropos to our present moment, I could point out that it's all about the relationship between our workplaces and our homes, that it can make you feel better about not being in an office, and that watching Jack Lemmon get a cold, show up for work, and obliviously spew infection wherever he goes provides us with an object lesson in What Most of Us Didn't Know that's more blackly comedic than frightening. But really, I'm suggesting you watch The Apartment simply because it's one of the best romantic comedies ever made.

I shouldn't have to sell anyone on the charms of this Oscar-winning masterpiece (Best Picture, Direction, Screenplay, Editing, and Art Direction, 1960), so I'll just say: Man, it holds up, from its opening sequence to its famous, perfect last exchange of dialogue (with a last line rivaled only by Wilder and Diamond's own Some Like It Hot). So let yourself revel in a time when the best talents of Hollywood were at the top of their form, whether seasoned masters (Wilder was 54) or newly-established young stars (Shirley MacLaine: 26).

For gossip and inside info on their collaboration, these two clips featuring interviews with some participants are a fun font, plus a gem from Ms. MacLaine, and a  word from Mr. Wilder on working with Lemmon, but you may want to take a gander at the movie first. Black and white rarely looked so good - and the same can be said of the picture's seemingly far away but not-so-innocent time.

'Rona Rom-Coms #7: ENCHANTED

[This Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance series suggests good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them suck.]

This selection is both a "getaway" and a way to deal with one pragmatic current reality. What's a rom-com you can watch while stay-at-home with kids? Enchanted: Call me kinky, call me crazy, call me a sentimental tool of corporate capitalism, but to me, this Disney movie that's ostensibly for children is one of the most fun romantic comedies of the past two decades.

Amy Adams, as an animated Snow White-like fairyland princess who ends up in live-action Manhattan, is amazing; the musical numbers by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz (including a delicious send-up of all such Disney musical numbers that features dancing vermin) are fabulous; the lack of nudge-wink overkill in Bill Kelly's witty script is admirable; and the incidental perks - including an apt wicked witch turn by Susan Sarandon and wry narration by Julie Andrews - confirm one's suspicion that in fact, this is a made-for-adults movie that's slyly wrapped in kiddie-appeal.

So let you and your little ones be transported by this tale of a princess, sprung from a realm that's "just beyond the Meadows of Joy and the Valley of Contentment" who finds a pre-pandemic New York City to be ultimately just as magical. 

'Rona Rom-Coms #6: LOST IN TRANSLATION

[This Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance series suggests good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them suck.]

In the "apropos" category, this beautifully directed dark comedy certainly resonates with our current moment. Studying aloneness, the movie glories in its moments of visceral isolation.

Largely remembered for its uproarious "Suntory time!" set piece, among other great gags, Lost in Translation is more a tone poem of melancholia than a raucous Bill Murray comedy. At heart, it's an elegiac meditation on the near-impossibility of sustaining romance; the Murray protagonist is in a marriage that's lost its spark, while the marriage of Scarlett Johansson's character is obviously over even as it's getting into gear. An air of mordant regret permeates the wryly funny-poignant encounters between the two leads, as they slip into a tacitly doomed not-quite love affair that's clearly never meant to be.

Yet the love that develops between them is palpable; the movie is a study of how affinity develops. In the case of these two, it has a lot to do with shared humor and wit. And as each struggles to make the best of their increased isolation, a slow but steady surge of hope guides them to a bittersweet, ambiguous, but kinda-sorta happy ending. Sounds good to me, right now. See if you agree.

'Rona Rom-Coms #5: SIDEWAYS

[This Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance series suggests good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them suck.]

In the category of rom-coms to Take You Away From All This, it's hard to think of a more enjoyable flight of fantasy (that is, fantasy by our current moment's standards) than Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor's Sideways. It's ostensibly about a hangdog failed novelist who goes searching, along with his philandering bad-actor buddy, for the best Pinot Noirs in the sun-soaked Santa Ynez Valley, but of course what he ends up finding is love and some life-altering epiphanies.

Ah, those were the days, indeed. And from our relatively benign solitary confinement as we pray for the plague to pass over us and for our spirits to rise again, it's such a wistful pleasure to contemplate the beauty of unfettered bounty depicted by this gem of a comedy, that it feels well-nigh illicit. Regardless: Treat yourself to the delights found in hanging out with the movie's memorable quartet of characters - hey, open a bottle of anything but Merlot, while you're at it - and lose yourself in the pithy, pungent dialogue, the great performances by Giametti, Madsen, Church, and Oh, and the kinds of conflicts that may seem quaint in the sober spring of 2020, but are nonetheless just as hilarious, and moving, as ever.

'Rona Rom-Coms #4: HER

[This Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance series suggests good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them suck.]

You may not think of Spike Jonze's Her as a romantic comedy - perhaps because it's also a sci-fi pic, a social satire, and a character-driven drama - but "Man falls in love with his computer's operating system" is about as contemporary rom-com as it gets, in my book, and the movie, despite its often melancholic tone, is filled with mordant wit and features some genuine LOL laughs.

It's also, viewed from one's shelter-in-place couch, weirdly resonant with the current moment. Watching it now can induce a surreal nostalgia for the not-quite past, given that the urban near-future it imagines is cavalierly populous and crowded, but simultaneously it's a film about isolation and its discontents. It depicts a love story between an emotionally-disabled guy (Joaquin Phoenix), channeling other people's emotions in his gig as a professional personal letter-writer, and his disembodied female-voiced OS (Scarlett Johansson), but practically everyone on screen is engrossed in a screen, rather than dealing with the humans in their proximity.

As an exploration of how to sustain a relationship when one of you is only present via technology and not physically there, Her can serve as a metaphor for the relationships many of us are trying to sustain in the time of COVID-19. And ultimately, it's a clear-eyed, hesitant affirmation of hope, and the fundamental importance of human connection. Sound relatable? Take a look.

'Rona Rom-Coms #3: EMMA

[This Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance series has been created in response to people looking for good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them suck.]

In the category of romantic comedies that will truly take you out of the present moment and into another world altogether is the recent Jane Austen adaptation Emma, fresh from our now empty theaters, which Uni Focus in its infinite wisdom has made available on pay-per-view. It also falls into the category of what my screenwriter friend Tess Morris derisively refers to as "Bonnet rom-coms," meaning period piece pics that tend to be filled with frippery and frivolousness.

In its opening minutes, Emma certainly seems to fill that bill. Set designed within an inch of its life with a color palette that resembles glazed petit fours, it thrusts us into an early 1800s world of wealth and privilege that from the vantage point of our 2020 couch confinement feels more like science fiction than reality. But - and it's a "but" that's key to Emma's sly, delightful enterprise - you soon realize that director Autumn de Wilde and screenwriter Eleanor Catton are quite consciously, satirically sending up the Bonnet Rom-Com ethos, and that unexpected depths (along with LOL laughs) dwell beneath its artful surface.

This tale of a self-involved woman who gets her comeuppance en route to finding true love is piloted by great performances by Anya Taylor-Joy, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth, and Johnny Flynn, and it gets more involving and emotionally raw as it goes, ending up in a place that's as surprisingly moving as it is witty. So if you're looking for an entertainment that will transport you from the here and now, yet put you in touch with your humanity, hie thee to your home screen. For less than the price of two movie theater tickets, it delivers.

'Rona Rom-Coms #2: THE BIG SICK

[This series of posts - Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance - has been created in response to people looking for good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them are romantic comedies that suck.]

At first glance, this one may feel a little too close for comfort, but the script of Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani's The Big Sick (directed by Michael Showalter) never veers into truly tragic territory, and especially people who've experienced loved ones being ill and/or hospitalized may find solace in how this essentially upbeat romantic dramedy deals with the realities of that scary, currently all too common situation.

Earlier in our self-isolation, when my wife and I screened the recent Invisible Man, my wife noted that it was fun to watch this well-made horror film because as frightening as it got, we knew that it would work out well in the end - unlike the ongoing horror-show of our current reality. By the same token, anyone who loves good comedy will enjoy The Big Sick's great, zinger-filled dialogue, the marvelous performances (including force-of-nature Holly Hunter, and Ray Romano at his post-Raymond best) and the genuinely fresh, surprising turns in a movie that's as much about family, the vagaries of emotional ambivalence, and overcoming biases, as it is about medical emergencies.

It's also about learning how to be the best version of yourself during a trying time, and ultimately it's about hope. Available on Amazon Prime and a number of online mediums.