Living the Romantic Comedy

'Rona Rom-Coms #1: MAN UP

[Since many people have been asking me of late, What's a good romantic comedy to watch at home now? I'm initiating a new series of posts: Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance. I hope to post suggestions throughout the weeks to come for movies directly relevant to our time of crisis and/or those that can successfully transport you away from it all.]

In honor of my dear friend screenwriter Tess Morris's birthday (April 6th) I'm kicking this off with Man Up. Like Tess herself, it's delightful, super-smart, often hilarious, British, and rewards repeat viewings.

Extra viewings of the movie are extra fun due to the various easter eggs, running gags, references, and callbacks that fill out its fast and funny script. But if you haven't seen it, being sequestered in your home is a great opportunity to first enjoy Man Up's multiple charms, which include great performances from leads Lake Bell and Simon Pegg, and a marvelously perverse supporting role by Rory Kinnear. If you're already familiar with the film, you may enjoy this informative behind the scenes interview.

While the movie's plot is not specifically pandemic-centric (beyond upping one's nostalgia for being able to run around London with impunity), I believe the giddy high spirits of it are just the sort of tonic called for in these troubled times. Available at multiple online venues. And a Happy Tess Day to its creator!

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 02-02-20 is historically palidromic).

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)

Mr. Rom-Com

Happy Cary Day to Mr. Grant (pictured above with his Rom-Com Heaven co-star, Kate)! On his birthday, it's impossible to resist looking at stills of his indomitable face again, and then getting sucked into the delightful vortex of looking at some clips.

In Writing the Romantic Comedy (its updated and expanded 20th Anniversary edition publishing on Feb. 11) I had this to say about his unique appeal: 

"Never too sophisticated to get slapstick silly, Cary Grant was as shrewdly cautious as he was capable of spontaneous lunacy; no matter how feminized he was forced to be, he remained fundamentally, admirably male to the core; and as involved as he may have gotten in the action, he maintained a certain ironic detachment, a cool self-awareness that made him an ideal audience surrogate... Strong but sensitive, he was able to leap tall problems in a single bound and, should he stumble, be merry about it."

I doubt we will ever see his like again. But that ideal is certainly one to aspire to, even at this late 21st Century date.

Book Launch

I’m doing two events in Los Angeles to celebrate the publication of the Revised, Expanded, and Updated 20^th Anniversary edition of Writing the Romantic Comedy, which is now 100 pages longer and full of new and intriguing goodies:

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 13^TH 2020

7:00 p.m. @ Vroman’s Bookstore

695 E. Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91101

At Vroman’s I’ll be showing a couple of great rom-com clips, while discussing what’s happened in the genre over the past 20 years and where it’s headed next, and…

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 20^TH 2020

6:30 p.m. @ Diesel Bookstore

in the Brentwood Country Mart, 225 26^th Street (Suite #33), Santa Monica, CA 90402

At Diesel I’ll have guest screenwriter Tess Morris (who used the original edition as a guide in writing her hilarious rom-com Man Up) join me for the discussion.

Come to Vroman’s to get that perfect Valentine’s Day gift for your writer/movie-lover significant other; come to Diesel to meet Tess; come to either or both to support your local indie bookstore and to enjoy the laughs and love!

Hope to see you there,

xx B.

Happy Diane Keaton's Birthday Day

Olden New

There've been so few genuinely romantic and funny moments on screen in 2019, either in romantic comedies or other films, that Greta Gerwig's delivery of a perfect rom-com moment in her new adaptation of Little Women stands out as a quiet triumph.

The clip above (full screen viewing recommended) unfortunately ends too soon, but below, a NY Times clip that features Gerwig's commentary on the sequence lets it play out. And of course any fan of romance, comedy, drama, and... women will want to see the entire film, clearly one of the best of the year.

A Happy 2020 to lovers of funny love stories from Living the Rom-Com!

 

Rom-Com Moments #2

[This series explores moments (a sequence, scene, shot, image and/or dialogue exchange) that capture something memorable about the phenomenon of humans in or out of love.] 

The Romance of the Mundane

Seeing a genuinely classic romantic comedy on the big screen - as I did in the splendiferous Los Angeles Theatre at the opening night of the L.A. Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats series this past weekend - reminded me that it's often the romantic part of such movies that's misunderstood in its cause and effect.

I can now attest in confidence that the 85 year-old It Happened One Night is still eternally young (many were the LOLs from its some two thousand seasoned 2019 viewers). There truly is not one dull moment in its 105 minutes. And one thing I noticed in this viewing, highlighted by the glorious black and white work of Joseph Walker (who shot roughly half of the best screwball comedies), was how little overt "romance" there was in the interactions between Colbert and Gable.

There is no onscreen kiss. Beyond one outsized, emotional declaration of love from Colbert in a moment of weakness, late in the show, and a later annoyed admittance of love that has to be practically pried out of Gable, the idea that these two are even in a romance would elicit incredulity from both characters. And this - central to the movie's underlying core gag: the unlikeliness of it all - is ironically what makes the movie feel so genuinely romantic.

In scene after scene, the joke we're in on (i.e. how much these supposedly carefree people are starting to care) is the subtext for an otherwise seemingly emotional involvement-free scene (screenwriter Robert Riskin excels at such ironies). Meanwhile director Capra and Walker unobtrusively work their magic, transforming the most pedestrian of settings into something heightened and, well... lovely. Being Depression poor has never looked so good, with two such capable, watchable leads making the most of a least that's cinematically rendered glorious.

Check out this literally glittering day-for-night scene (full clip here), that's nonetheless naturalistic and pragmatic in both tone and word - a congenial argument about the proper position for piggybacking. It's not just the surprise of Gable's move (you don't entirely anticipate it), it's the action itself: Gable picks Colbert up almost casually, and their intimacy is both conscious ("I wish you'd stop being playful" he snipes, as she bats his butt with the shoes she's holding) and unconscious: these in-it-for-themselves loners are already clearly coupled.

The movie's a textbook on how romantic happens, which is often when your characters are busy doing other things. We're the ones who get to savor the glory of what to them remains unseen.

Calling All Adults

If you're a lover of romantic comedy, and you've been complaining about the dearth of rom-coms that have the sophistication, the wordplay and banter, and the substantive subject matter - let alone the laughs - that harken back to the genre's golden age, now is the time for you to do the equivalent of showing up at the ballot box for the next election: Go to your local theater and see Long Shot.

I suggest this not because Long Shot is the best romantic comedy ever (it's not), but because it's funny, it's smart, and it's precisely the kind of Romantic Comedy for Adults that's the hardest to get made these days; already in danger of being crushed by the usual box office heavy-hitters (Marvel, etc.) despite good reviews, this movie could use your support.

I can guess your reservations: Yet again with the Shlubby Guy Wins Gorgeous Babe shtick?! I had the same misgivings. But whether or not you can embrace Seth Rogen (who's quite good here, with a thoroughly convincing variation on his usual themes), Long Shot features Charlize Theron at her brilliant best, doing the sort of cannily downplayed comedic turn that recalls Old School screwball heroines like Jean Arthur and Barbara Stanwyck in their heyday.

Long Shot also offers - for those brave souls involved in the increasingly difficult job of writing a romantic comedy - an object lesson in how to create a credible hookup between two extremely unlikely mates-to-be. Minor contrivances aside, screenwriters Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah have done a bangup job of convincing us that the Secretary of State and speechwriting journalist played by Theron and Rogen not only could, but should end up together, and that's no small feat.

Additionally, the movie doesn't merely ask the usual supporting cast suspects to do their usual. Some relatively unfamiliar faces (including O'Shea Jackson Jr. and June Day Raphael) and one "why doesn't she get more work like this?" old favorite (Lisa Kudrow) enliven a show that's replete with great throwaway lines and purely visual reaction shots, under the capable direction of Jonathan Levine (of 50/50 and the underrated Warm Bodies). Yes, there are post-Apatow gross-out gags, but the amount of LOL Jokes For Thinking Folks is unusually high. 

Finally, this is a romantic comedy that's about something, and it's unafraid to embrace a clear political stance, recalling the sort of comedies that Frank Capra used to make. I don't want to oversell the thing, but as my colleague Manohla Dargis puts it in her worth-the-read NY Times review, “Long Shot isn’t going to save the romantic comedy, but it’s an adrenaline shot of pure pleasure to the genre’s failing heart." What she said, say I: Go see this before it goes away, so that maybe more of these kinds of movies can follow its lead.

The 21st Century Rom-Com

I just sent my draft of the Revised & Expanded 20th Anniversary Writing the Romantic Comedy to my editor, which means I immediately discovered two misspelled names (one of them so famous as to further the embarrassment), a few typos, and at least a passage or two that glaringly demand further revision. (Note: Anyone who's ever handed in something on deadline has experienced this phenomenon, which I'd have a clever name for if I weren't brain dead.) 

One thing I discovered in the writing is how different so many of the now beloved couples in rom-coms from the past two decades look from couples in romantic comedies past. What profound insight regarding said couples have I left out of the supposedly all-inclusive text? is the kind of query that's currently promoting my insomnia.

As I've been trying to weigh popularity, critical opinion, and historical weight in terms of citing a given movie from this 2000-2019 period, I am absolutely sure of only one thing: that I have left something out.

So do let me know if there's any romantic comedy from the turn of the century till now that you believe must be acknowledged in this new edition, no matter how obscure or over-obvious. I'm open to suggestion, as I wait for my editor's edit suggestions. Do let me know, because y'know... Nobody's perfect.

How to Get an Agent

How do you get an agent? After everything we’ve talked about for weeks, this is of course the one and only thing you aspiring screenwriters want to know: How do you get an agent?

Well, first, you’re going to have to make a sacrifice. I suggest you kill something. Not anyone you know, necessarily – a fly would do, for starters, or say, all the other screenwriters in the world. Short of that, do get a bit of blood on your hands. Is there a woman present? Make this sacrifice in a way that will impress her. Reveal a hidden strength, or perhaps an ability to sing. In which case – learn how to read music? Master a musical instrument.

If there were no women present at your moment of sacrifice, a song is a good way of attracting their attention. Failing that, move to another country. If you find one at war, that’s especially useful. See if you can either help win the war, or find a way to lose it that enables you to survive. Helpful too, at this point to learn how to cook. Scrambled eggs will do, as you can put anything in them. Crack two in a bowl, add a dash of goat milk, salt, pepper, beat the eggs and get out a pan with butter – other recipes and methodologies are available. Or just boil an egg, so you can carry the hardboiled egg in your pocket, along with a spoon, as you carefully separate the strands of barbed wire so that you can crawl though the fence to get to safe territory. Try not to tear your jeans and if possible, pick up a dog.

Keep the egg for yourself but find food for the dog. Otherwise she or he is liable to desert you. Have you learned the language? Become fluent in at least two foreign languages. La pared means wall (I know, it doesn’t sound like a feminine word, but in Spanish these things are often counterintuitive). It is la pared. Learn that and the word for hope – ESPERANZA! – hope and the wall. That’s what you need to know. Is there a woman yet?

Go to the town square, where the accordions play and the guitarists, where women tend to gather. Sing, you big beast! You want to see eyes widen. And if you are a woman – I have heard there are a few female screenwriters – you’ll still want a woman to help you. The men are mostly useless. Alright, now steal a jeep, while the others are distracted, they’re singing Guan-tana-mera or calling the wind Mariah – so gun the motor, drive like a fiend. Are you there yet? Take the right hand road. It narrows, the moon bathes it in an unearthly glow. Could the moon’s light be other than unearthly? Think about it. There are things you need to contemplate.

Your dog is howling in the back seat. Drive through the mountain pass, and if the soldiers are firing at you, duck. Rescue a woman, while you’re at it. If she wants to be married, do it. Maybe she’s willing to bear your firstborn child. Not right now, you don’t have time for that, you have to be on the ferry by five to midnight, before the fuses blow. Learn whether it is the red wire or the blue wire that needs to be cut. Cut it, but don’t answer that phone. Fly instead to the other side of the continent under an assumed name. Say the password esperanza! to the leader of the resistance, only to be betrayed and thrown in prison. It’s like being at the bottom of a well but you have your spoon – did you remember the spoon? Begin to dig. A year later when you emerge, no one will recognize you. Use this to your advantage. Sneak into the cellar and snatch a bottle of vintage Pino Noir. And have a drink for courage, because the dog is having puppies.

Realize that one of the puppies can be bartered for a ticket out of town. Over the next hill, in the valley, between two one-limbed cypress trees, you’ll find the remnants of the treasure that’s already been dug up. The bone that you find there can be fashioned into a utensil to write with. And there is always blood. Write about the life of your son, the one you could’ve had with your wife, if you weren’t so intent on your career. Your son is now the owner of an empire of shoes, and you can afford at least the left boot of a pair at discount. With the money you have left, invest in one good stock, anything but Boeing. The shed has yet to be roofed, you have to battle a swarm of bats first and there’s a lesson to be learned in this, something profound but ineffable. Sing about it, only do it in seven-syllable lines. Write 120 pages of these haiku and polish them all till they shine, brilliant in the morning sun. The men in suits are there, crouched in the orchard with their rifles. The one who won’t shoot is the one you can talk to, if you’ve learned the language. The familiar-looking one with the silver tooth who’s a muckety-muck at ICM, the one who owes you some money. Is he your brother-in-law? That’s how you get an agent.