Good Enough?

The writer Randall Jarrell once defined the novel as "a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it." 

So what is a movie, then, but a filmic narrative of feature length that could be better?

Everyone really is a critic by now (see this and all blogs, Facebook and Twitter, et al), which makes my job as a studio reader all the more painful.  Practically anyone I talk to can - and will - tell me what's wrong with a given movie and how it could've been improved (you can count your carp-free classics on one hand - Tootsie or Empire Strikes Back, anyone?).  Yet due to my perch inside the belly of an often dysfunctional industry beast, I'm in the odd position of being amazed when any movie a) gets made and b) is actually pretty good.

That's why my thoughts on the movie that won this weekend (with a respectable $27 million and counting) are a little... conflicted.  So let's put it this way: Date Movie isn't awful, and Steve Carell and Tina Fey are amazing.  Need we say more?

Well, yeah - Living RomCom can't come back from hiatus and leave it at that.  For one thing, Date Movie proves me right in something I've been pontificating about for years: that one of the best ways to get a romantic comedy made (and to make it a success) is to combine it with another genre. 

In Writing the Romantic Comedy, I discussed over a dozen "hybrid" romantic comedy genres, from adventure (Romancing the Stone) to supernatural/fantasy (Splash) to teen (American Pie).  While I did discuss action/crime rom-coms, as well as citing the marital rom-com as a sub-genre of its own, it's really only in the past decade or two that the action comedy marital rom-com has solidified into its currently familiar form.  As Jonah Weiner points out in his perceptive NY Times article:

"Date Night" is the latest in a long line of films in which a man and woman liven up the extended sigh that is their marriage with a joint stint as sleuths, crime-busters and action heroes. Recent examples include  "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" from 2005, "The Incredibles" from 2004 and "True Lies" from 1994, all films in which middle-class suburbanites suffer a crisis of comfort — their domestic contentment breeding an anxious inertia — and in which no amount of couples counseling can equal the restorative effects of, say, teaming up to thwart a terrorist, as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis do in “True Lies.” In his 1981 book “Pursuits of Happiness,” Stanley Cavell wrote about “comedies of remarriage,” movies in which marital commitment is threatened but ultimately reaffirmed. “Date Night” and its kin are the action-comedies of remarriage.

What he said.  To which I'll add, speaking to the screenwriters in the audience: If you're looking for a way in which to enliven your romantic comedy spec, make it more of a movie that can fill the big screen, and thus convince studios that it'll appeal to a wider audience...  Have you considered a car chase?

Removing tongue from cheek, I'll note that the need for car chases in mainstream movies is something that's always bothered me, since it's been the bane of many a mediocre project.  In Date Movie, the car chase takes place with the speeding lead car made up of two cars that have crashed into each other and are thus attached, grille to grille - and this sums up the movie's method: if it has to borrow a cliché, it at least tries to pay it back with some comedic interest.

But the interest in Date Movie is almost wholly supplied by its leads.  Carell and Fey are a match made in movie heaven, and in the old days of the studio system, they'd have promptly been forced to make another half a dozen movies together - not so much fun for the stars, perhaps, but great for us.  I'm not alone in making the William Powell/Myrna Loy comparison - rarely, these days, do we get to see a cinematic married couple that's this convincing, nor as smart and sharp.  Ironically, it's our delight in their sophistication (and consummate comedic timing) that makes Date Night kind of a drag.

A question that hovers over the movie is: Has screenwriter Josh Klausner written such a formulaic and fundamentally predictable script because he thinks he's doing what he's supposed to do, or because it's really the best he can do?  You don't expect cutting edge from director Shawn Levy (he of the horrible Pink Panther remakes and the mediocre Night at the Museum 1 & 2), but brother: given the powerhouse pairing of Steve & Tina (and a crackerjack cast that employs Mark Ruffalo, Ray Liotta, the ubiquitous Kristen Wiig, and Mark Wahlberg), is this the movie we want to see? 

Not really, though don't get me wrong: for its occasional flashes of brilliance (again, when Carell and Fey are let loose on a decent joke, such as their brief, ace impersonations of NYC arty-snob types) and its few witty running gags (e.g. the ever-shirtless Wahlberg), the movie earns a solid "B" - you won't feel your money was entirely wasted.  But stick around for the credits, and the by-now de rigeur blooper reel gives you a sense of what might have been, if the lead couple had been given a chance to make hay with loopier, more imaginative material.

Like I said, a movie is almost always something that could've been better, but this one's disappointments are bittersweet.  It's so enjoyable to watch Tina Fey and Steve Carell work together that you wish you could see them in something truly great, as opposed to a movie that's only good enough.

Comments

[E.C. Henry]

Really love Steve Carell and Tina Fey. Both are uber talented, and have show the abilty to carry scenes.

"Date Night" looks like fun. Haven't seen it yet, :( But when I do I wonder if there is any mernitman fingerprints to be found. Well, are there?

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[Patrick]

Welcome back. Funny you mention Empire Strikes Back. I watched it again recently, it's not nearly as good at age 50 as it was at age 20...

[Tess Morris]

Hello Billy,

I just wanted to say that I only discovered Writing The Romantic Comedy last year, and it is now my bible. And not just for writing romantic comedies but for writing all scripts!

Thought you'd like to know that.

All the best from London,
Tess
ps - Haven't seen Date Night yet, but your review confirms what I was already worrying about...

[Christian H.]

In chemistry the formula doesn't actually change but cinema can mix and match like crazy.

I was totally turned off by the trailer and I have narrowed my choices for fear of a bad experience. My formula is superhero movies only. They are always the most thoughtful and well-executed films nowadays.

But I digress. RomCom just by it's name is a hybrid genre. Maybe the term "Comedic Romance" better suits the quantitative aspects while "Romantic Comedy" better suits the qualitative.

I'm never sure how to tell someone to make a movie better after they write it. I either like it or don't.
Though I do look for certain elements of competence which can be found in the analysis of competent work.
Perhaps screenwriters are relying too much on the "that's the director's job" mentality.

THE SCREENWRITER IS EVERY VOICE IN THE PRODUCTION.

She has to understand scene construction, transition; description without definition (librarian garb instead of simple skirt, ruffled top, etc.); the flexibility of dialog (broken English is best to allow the actor to inject some feeling); blocking and framing of scenes for the camera. Oh yeah, and being able to tell a joke or make someone think or bring tears to their eyes is included in all of that.

In other words, this is not for the faint of heart.

We writers must be crazy.

[mernitman]

EC: No fingerprints that I can recognize. I think you'll enjoy this movie, at any rate.

Patrick: Interesting. Nonetheless, critical consensus (did you see last week's "Entertainment Weekly" cover story?) still has it as the best of the STAR WARS trilogy, and while it may not pack the same punch now as it did then for you, generally film fans put in their Top Tens. I'll have to take another look, myself...

Tess: It's always great to hear that the book has been useful to a writer, so thank you! DATE NIGHT is still worth seeing (with lowered expectations) for fans of the form - and the stars.

Christian: Yes, we writers must be crazy. How else to deal with the world's craziness?! Not for the faint of heart, indeed.

[Roland]

I'd like to see the blooper real kick off the movie instead of end it. Of course if the bloopers are better than the real scenes, we've got a problem, but if not... fun ensues.

Welcome back.

[Patrick]

I did see that EW cover story the day after I posted that "Empire Strikes Back" comment, so maybe I'm just a nitpicker. What struck me this most recent time through the movie was that some of the dialog is pretty clunky, and something else, maybe the acting was a bit stiff in a few scenes. The dialog issue shouldn't be surprising with the most recent sample of Lucas' writing in the new trilogy.

[Simone White]

I, Critic

I loved the trailer for Date Night but was sorely disappointed with the whole thing. Oh man did they waste talent. It was so depressing, I drifted in a morose cloud out of the theater.
p.s.
Yes, everyone seems to be a critic these days but I think that's down to the medium of the internet. Remember in the olden days what a person thought about a movie could be quite critical but it usually only went as far as earshot.

[mernitman]

Roland: Actually, playing the entire MOVIE backwards would make it more interesting.

Patrick: Looking at EMPIRE through the hindsight prism of the horrific PHANTOM and co. is bound to point up its weak bits... You're right, though: The acting was always on the stiff side. Part of its charm, for the truly devoted.

Simone: "Morose cloud" - I love that! The old days v. new days people-as-critics issue will be best discussed over a bottle of good wine...

[Joanna Farnsworth]

Billy, thanks for this. Your words soothe every soul longing for better movies.

There is a ray of hope. On last week's overseas flight, out of 20+ in-flight movies, I again found one good enough to pass my 30-year Overseas Overnight Flight Test (OOFT).

That means, good enough to make me forget cramped legs, aching eyeballs, dehydrated brain cells, turbulence nausea, and keep me from dozing on my neighbor.

But then, Terminator and Titantic had passed the OOF Test. So why not Avatar?

Why not indeed. Whatever you may think of it, Avatar works. Even on a tiny screen, with bad colour, tin can sound, and no 3-D glasses. It's the underlying story that holds the attention. Avatar is about Brotherhood.

Like the past 75 years of movies, Avatar delivers a universal attitudinal story dressed up in a metaphoric visual action experience, and the audience lapped it up.

I, for one, want to believe box office success is due to that story structure too, not just to 3-D.

Long live the re-surfaced attitudinal metatphor. I have ten more years of overnight flights to get through!