Meeting Yourself

Nestled into the warm and fuzzy center of Stranger Than Fiction is a gentle, poignant little romantic comedy starring Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and watching this movie-within-the-movie gave me some rom-com thoughts to share, but first we ought to get the rest of what’s around it out of the way.

Stranger is not, I hasten to add, a romantic comedy, but a charming, very watchable if ultimately disappointing fantasy-dramedy you could call “Charlie Kaufman Lite.”

Though it feels unfair to take pot-shots at a pic that’s at least trying to do something interesting, let me say this about that. What makes Groundhog Day a bonafide masterpiece is the true courageousness of its convictions – it takes an absurd premise and goes allllllllllll the way with it, using a device to explore some fundamentally profound philosophical notions and deliver big laughs and a satisfying emotional punch (it also doesn’t force a comedic genius into a straight man’s straitjacket, as Stranger does with its lesser but still formidable star). What makes Eternal Sunshine and Adaptation genuinely great is Kaufman’s commitment to truly taking on and tangling with some uncomfortably knotty ideas, and seeing them through to legitimately earned, albeit somewhat ambiguous conclusions.

What makes Stranger less than great is its perplexing inability to do more with its concept than… well, play with it, much in the manner of a particularly athletic cat having at a ball of twine. Stranger, despite a witty script peppered with wonderful moments, doesn’t really go all the way. Is it entertaining? Absolutely. Worth seeing? For sure. But does it really deliver the goods promised by its premise? Nuh-uh.

I can’t back up this opinion without going into detailed Spoiler Issues (like I’d have to give away the ending, etc.) so I’ll just veer to the right here and note that the movie’s full of performances to relish (e.g. the ever-dependable Emma Thompson, who brings some needed histrionics to a determinedly low-key enterprise, and Dustin Hoffman, who manages to make a lot of Less seem like a whole lotta More). Not so well off is Queen Latifah, stuck in a thankless role that requires her to largely stand around looking sagely, a fate sometimes suffered by the noble African-Americans inhabiting such White Man’s Universe movies -- but enough. It’s a fun movie to see, and I have romantic comedy thoughts.

Here’s the thing: there’s a standard cliché, long-beloved in rom-com circles, called Opposites Attract, meaning: many a rom-com screenplay sets up a man and woman as polar opposites in personality and then throws them together in a cute meet, and the instant inference is divine kismet, as in “He’s a this and she’s a that, and high jinks ensue!” The obvious question is, why? Because so many of these creations are entirely arbitrary, why should we buy into the notion that “they hate each other” should translate into “they will love each other?”

Well, in the best of these chemical combustions, the matrix of personalities represented in a cute meet has an organic logic to it: Jack Sprat will eat no fat, and Jane will eat no lean. In other words, what one half of the couple-to-be has, the other lacks and vice -versa; we’re looking at interlocking needs. What I find to be true of the best, most enduring rom-com couples, both on screen and off, is that they really do “complete” each other – what they are, at core, is two halves of an integrating whole.

Here, case in point, is Stranger’s Harold Crick: an IRS agent who’s so uptight and rule-abiding, routine-bound that he actually counts the necessary number of brush strokes when he brushes his teeth. He meets Ana Pascal, a radical, anarchism-espousing owner of a funky hippie bakery who’s so “make up my own non-rules” that she’s deciding what portion of her taxes she feels like paying… and high jinks ensue. Their audit sessions become the basis for true romance because, as we intuitively understand it, Harold needs what Ana has (freedom, in-the-moment carpe diem-ism) – just as Ana needs what Harold can offer (i.e. the kind of pragmatic logic that will keep her out of jail).

What I find interesting on a screenwriting level –and am curious to pursue in terms of its correlation to real-life experience— is that writer Zach Helm grounds the initial attraction in the physical. Crick is mesmerized by Ana’s appearance – the bold tattoo that covers one bare shoulder, her bra-less breasts and winsome, toothy grin. Because Harold is so smitten by Ana’s sexuality (and only tacitly, her freewheeling personality) he becomes fixated on winning her. He wants her.

I think he’s merely confused. As my current bible of human perception (Cordelia Fine’s terrifying but ultimately edifying A Mind of Its Own: How the Brain Distorts and Deceives) points out, humans are oft apt to misunderstand their own emotional responses.

Fine posits a simple equation to explain human emotions: EMOTION = AROUSAL + EMOTIONAL THOUGHTS. She finds (based on research experimentation) that “when it comes to emotions, your brain is a bit like a laundry assistant matching socks in a hurry before his coffee break… In lieu of a perfect match, it’s happy to snatch up any old black sock that looks about right. The consequence of this is that you attribute your arousal to the wrong thing.”

Harold, in meeting Ana, has been subjected to a verbal evisceration; he’s been railed at for being The Man, the auditor as representative of the unfeeling, anti-free-living government; the very essence of his being (i.e. he likes his job) has been assaulted and rejected. Following this, being a man (as opposed to The), he focuses his attraction to Ana on her physical being. But in fact, what’s attracting him is the call of the lost half of his soul.

This is what we want to see in good romantic comedy; I persist it’s what we want in our romantic life. Must it always be lust that rules? Despite the obvious movie convention (i.e. movie stars are good-looking, why wouldn’t they find each other hot?), I think not. For the lazy screenwriter (and the guy who just wants to get lucky), the physical thing is the cheap-shot, easily forged connection, but how far does that go? By contrast, I’ve had the experience of meeting an attractive woman but not sparking to her physically at first (i.e. thinking, She's for me) – and then, only in meeting her mind, personality and soul did the deeper arousal (My God, she’s beautiful, I've got to have her!) kick in.

Ferrell’s Harold character swiftly moves from his initial physical pull to a deeper one, tacitly acknowledging before long that what Ana has to offer is nothing less than an expansion and redemption of his entire way of living. I think it’s the “recognizing one’s lost (or suppressed, or unacknowledged) half in another person” that’s the true key to the chemistry in romantic comedy cute meets… just as it’s the clincher in real life. As Stranger Than Fiction deftly, sweetly demonstrates, this is what Opposites Attract really means: love happens when we see a part of ourselves in each other, gloriously alive and reinterpreted -- and we want to reclaim it.

That’s my theory, at any rate. What do you think?

Comments

[Danny]

Hard to disagree when you put it so eloquently and convincingly. Excellent, thank you.

[E.C. Henry]

Dear rom/com therorist (a.k.a. Billy Mernit),

Thanks for going into "Stranger than Fiction." The rom/com angle for this film doesn't appeal to me at all. I thought the rom/com stuff would come from the Thompson/Farell pairing. Perhaps THAT would be a more interesting one.

Dustin Hoffman ROCKS! He's probably my favorite actor of all-time. Every roll this man plays sparkles. The fact he's in this movie, may push me over the edge to see it.

As for your theory... Yeah sure, the deeper side of our nature is looking for something we've lost or don't have. Opposites do attract -- TO A POINT. Sometimes we are attracted to the absurb, just because its different, but genearlly I don't think such an attraction lasts very long, nor is it a stable/rational one.

Your main point, "opposites attract really means: love happens when we see a part of ourselves in each other, gloriously alive and reinterpreted" is a GREAT ONE. I think you should save that one, and use it later should you ever decide to write a sequel to "Writing the Romantic Comedy."

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[alisa kwitney]

It's stuff like this that makes you my rom-com rabbi, Billy.

I also think of it as the perfectly wrong/perfectly right contradiction: The person who appears to be the worst possible match for you is actually the best possible. It can't just be the nether parts that fit -- the holes in his head have to fit the pegs in hers, and vice versa.

p.s. I think Maggie Gylenhaal is becoming to indie rom com what Meg Ryan was to mainstream.

p.p.s. I'm dying to hear what you thought of Marie Antoinette, unless I missed it here. I thought the film lost its point of view after (SPOILER ALERT FOR HISTORY DROP OUTS) Marie and the king finally do the deed. It wasn't a case of the director being too free with history, I felt -- but a case of her letting the surge of historical detail drown the story she was trying to tell.

[Ann Wesley Hardin]

I like your theory, Billy. It's about inner fulfillment--making each other whole by rejeuvenating those dehydrated parts within--rather than needily clinging to someone who has something you never had to begin with.

The former invigorates, while the latter sucks the life outta you. No one wants that in real life, and why should we enjoy watching it on film? So yeah, to create characters who complete each other in this manner, using this unique and hopeful spin on the Opposites Attract tool, I agree would make a most memorable, enduring romcom--on screen and off.

You know, I always avoided writing opposites in my stories. Always HATED the device because I didn't believe it could realistically lead to a happily ever after. But now I believe it. Wow. You really are Da Man on Da Mountain!

[sillypants]

This is the first I've read from your site and I enjoyed it very much-thanks for the insight, eval, reveiw breakdown. It was super.

[mernitman]

Thank you, Danny.

(Screenwriters might enjoy taking a look at Danny's blog:
www.dannystack.blogspot.com)

EC: Well, okay, then.

Alisa I have always wanted to be your rom-com rabbi.

I had similar reactions to MARIE, though I thought the visuals throughout were stunning.

Ann you making me blush...

Welcome, Sillypants! I wish I knew more people with names like yours.

[debbieb]

I love you Billy! You are awesome with the way you weave the words of every story you tell. I love writing rom com and you are my hero. Thanks for this beautiful and inspiring blog.

[debbieb]

I almost forgot to comment on your post about love and chemistry and opposites attract! I think many men are like Will's Harold character and are attracted to the physical first. If they are wise, they move to seeing the inner soul of the woman and that is when love can happen.

Thanks again Billy. Your book Writing the Romantic Comedy is always by my side....even at night in bed :)

[Miriam Paschal]

Sometimes opposites attract because what's really happening is that each person finds a matching neurosis in the other. The ideal match of opposites is when you find the yin to your yang. Together the two of you make up one whole.

The yin-yang symbol is the best example of why opposites attract. Within the white half is a little black and within the black is a little white.

In "Sacrament" Clive Barker postulated that we all used to be perfect beings until we split in half. Since then, each of us has been looking for our other half.

[mernitman]

Welcome DebbieB and thanks so much for your kind words; happy to be sharing your bed ;-)

Miriam: Neurosis no, yin-yang yes, absolutely, the former leads to rom-tradge folie a deux.

Good for Mr. Barker, but Aristophanes got there first; he saw "the search for love as one half of a self looking for its other half"...

Oh and hey, ever seen HEDWIG? There's a great animated number on this theme in it, called "The Origin of Love."

[brooke]

I didn't read this cause I want to see the movie and I hate when I know too much about a movie before I see it but I wanted to say hi anyway.

That probably should have been more than one sentence.

Hi Billy!

[jess]

I have this to say:

Males of the twenty-something variety orbit around the planet of lust.

And it makes them do retarded, *retarded* things.

like yelling the word, "yeah!" at me as I try to muck my way through an East Village monsoon. Why is that the only word that comes to thier mind? Why do they yell it? WHAT IS GOING ON IN THEIR BRAINS?!

...you need to write a romantic comedy about the inner workings of the male and female mind. What would it look like?

i'm serious. this is a genius idea. trust me. geniuses don't lie.

[mernitman]

Hi Brooke!!!

Jess: The answer to your first question is, it's their Little Brains talking...

I do need to write that rom-com. In fact -- oh, I just wrote it! Why are you trying to give me an idea I've had forever? (That's right: geniuses STEAL.)