Living the Romantic Comedy

Rom-Com Truisms # 1

The primary challenge lies not in creating obstacles to keep the couple apart, but in convincing the audience that these two people truly do belong together.

The current box office hit that you're not supposed to like - because it's an Adam Sandler movie - is nobody's idea of a great romantic comedy.  In fact, due to its derivative pedigree (based on a movie based on a play based on a French play, no less), the project sounds more like the "xerox of a xerox of a copy of a movie" decried by this sobering screed that's lately been giving Hollywood screenwriters insomnia.

So sue me, but I found parts of it to be LOL funny, despite the usual trademark Sandler homophobia, racism and misogyny, and in terms of What America's In the Mood For right now, I totally get why it's doing well.  It's a tan-bodied, creamy, candy-colored bright shiny object of a movie that's just sharp enough, at moments, to transcend its retro stupidity and revel in entertaining Guilty Pleasure silliness.  It's also the best thing Jennifer Aniston's done in... well, it's nice to see her in something watchable. 

But this is not why I'm writing about - what was the name of it, again?  I simply want to point out one particular thing that the movie gets right. [Note: Big SPOILER coming up here, but if you're worried about spoilers in an Adam Sandler comedy, I'm worried about you.] The movie, after a prologue, spends what might seem to some like an inordinate amount of time setting up the deal between Adam and Jen: he's a successful L.A. plastic surgeon, and she's his girl Friday, and clearly - this is where a whole lot of first act leisurely exposition and gags go by - they really enjoy working together. 

These two share a sense of humor, they have a rhythm, a wry, screwball-esque give and take; it's fun to hang out with them because they get each other.  Even when they're at odds, especially when they're giving each other shit, they make a delightful pair.  And that's why, at the later crucial turn of the plot that leads to the inevitable happy ending that you had to expect, given that they're the stars of this romantic comedy (and all-body Brooklyn Decker, despite the trailer, is not)... you believe it: you buy that Adam would choose love over lust, and that he and Jennifer are ultimately the best fit.

Romantic comedy writers all too often put way too much emphasis on figuring out ways to keep their leads apart.  But conflicts and obstacles are actually the easy part of romantic comedy screenwriting.  The harder task lies in creating what I call a chemical equation for your protagonists - presenting the clear, vivid and genuinely convincing evidence that because he's like this and she's like that, they absolutely, positively must end up a couple.  My point isn't that Sandler and Aniston have great chemistry as performers (though they do), it's that the chemistry is on the screenplay page.

Check out the rom-com classic couples that endure (say, Alvy and Annie in Annie Hall, Loretta and Ronnie in Moonstruck, or Harry and Sally in When...) and you'll see that chemical equation writ large.  We root for them, and we love them, because they're fully developed characters who have just the right quirky pieces between them to perfectly complete a romantic puzzle.   Which is why the obstacles that do come between them pack so much heat - and humor.

I'm not suggesting that Danny and Katherine in Just Go With It are one for the ages.  But if you'd like to see an object lesson in how to make an audience buy into any rom-com's most vital buy, check out the smoothly engineered chemical combustion that gets this movie over its blatant contrivances.  You may find yourself laughing at the sort of set pieces that'll make you hate yourself in the morning, but hey - I'll bet you've blown a few bucks on far more egregious yucks.

Just Don't Say This...

On Valentine's Day, even the most anti-romantic of men and women, if currently involved in a (more or less viable) relationship, are forced to step up to the plate.  Kicking and screaming - or, if you're congenitally inclined to enjoy such activities, smiling and sighing - you'll be called upon to at least act romantic... or face a night that ends, shall we say, un-luckily.

In the interest of supporting good relations, Living RomCom proffers this link to one writer's assessment of the 13 Cheesiest Lines From Romantic Comedies as a kind of cautionary public service announcement.  That declaration of your deepest, sappiest feelings?  Be careful how you say it, or you may just meet with outraged incredulity, or worse. 

The HuffPo's Pat Hroncich has limited said list to comedies, but for the record, my nominee for the all-time worst line from a romantic movie has got to be, obviously, Love Story's immortal "Love means never having to say you're sorry." In what alternate universe, dude?  If you're romancing your date with lines as wince-worthy as any one on Hroncich's list, a convincing apology will be only the first vital necessary step towards makin' the lovin' happen.

When in doubt, as Lauren Bacall once said to lover Humphrey Bogart, "Just put your lips together and blow."

The Hidden Heroine

It's that time of the year again.  Romantic comedy lovers, lovers comedic or serious -- all humans with beating hearts know 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.

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, 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 on same, and you'll find (p.12) that "a romantic comedy is a comedy whose central plot is embodied in a romantic relationship" and that (p.13) "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 by Day'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 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.

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)