I confess: I like (some) romantic comedies. In no particular order I enjoyed: Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping, IQ, Serendipity, and You’ve Got Mail. Yeah, it’s Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan heavy. They are the king and queen of the genre. But this past weekend I saw trailers for two romantic comedies you couldn’t bribe me to watch (not true, I have a price but I’m making a point). One was about Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up) being a bridesmaid 27 times and not finding the right guy. The other was Hilary Swank opening letters from her dead boyfriend/husband and following their instructions to get her life back together.
Yuck.
I understand that the romantic comedy genre is one designed from the ground up as an appeal to female moviegoers, but I felt like those films I listed as ones I enjoyed had something for the guy in them. You had the interaction between John Cusack and his best friend Jeremy Piven in Serendipity, or you had the silly WWII-As-Romance-Movie sequence from Sleepless in Seattle. But these two movies, and a host of others I’ve glimpsed in the last couple of years look like they were written for women. They’re Lifetime/Bridget Jones movies.
Doesn’t that seem limiting? 90% of the time a woman drags her gentleman to these movies, but would it hurt to throw the guy a bone so he says “Hey, that wasn’t so bad, surely you’ll come with me to Action Death Kill 7 : The Revenge with me now that I didn’t fall asleep during Romancing The Romance starring Hugh Grant?”
These movies seem to have over narrowcasted themselves. Either that or they just need more Meg Ryan.
The Romantic Comedy is to women what James Bond is to men: fantasy wish-fulfillment.
Oliver, you make a good point. In order for the romantic comedy to work, it has to have some focus on the man. That’s why movies like ‘When Harry Met Sally’ and ‘You’ve Got Mail’ do work because the men are given some added screen time.
I also think that it takes a special kind of actress to be able to pull it off because it has to be somewhat believable. Actresses like Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock have the ability to be cute despite being beautiful. Katherine Heigl? She’s smoking hot. The notion that somebody that hot is having guy trouble is absurd.
In addition, what also works is the ‘every man’ actor who plays opposite the woman. Men and women find guys that are too good looking (like James Mardsen or Matthew McConaughey) not believable as well. So guys like Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford and John Cusack work better.
I liked High Fidelity. It always struck me as Ferris Bueller Grows Up; set in Chicago, the constant breaking the fourth wall, etc.
I’d never heard of the two movies you mention, but I clicked on the links. I’d point out that both of them are inherently flawed, even for a romantic comedy: the first is based on the premise that a woman isn’t possibly going to have a happy, rewarding life unless she’s married, and the second has some stalker reaching from beyond the grave to order a woman to do something that the deceased evidently decided was right for her.
I suspect they’ll do minimally okay in theaters, and make a bit of profit in DVD release, and that they’ll both be forgettable, and people will wonder why Hilary Swank can’t find a good role.
‘High Fidelity’ was a great movie (Another one with John Cusack - shocker). His girlfriend wasn’t gorgeous, but Iben Hjejle lit up the screen every time she smiled. And they had those great scenes with Cusack, Todd Louiso and Jack Black. Awesome script as well and introduced me to some new music too.
“The Sure Thing”
Well, Jay, at least we agree on something..
“Before Sunset” (and “Before Sunrise” too.) Ain’t nothing better.