I was cleaning out my old inbox and came across a nice mention from Andy Conway of a Rom Com analysis I did a while back.  In checking the site for the newsletter article in question I realized I’d never transferred it over from the old website.  Here is his comment followed by the original article.  Sometimes housecleaning yields some interesting nuggets!

I’ve mentioned Laurie Hutzler’s brilliant ‘Emotional Toolbox’ newsletter before and there’s something in her February newsletter that really struck me and I thought I should share.

After films about time travel, I’d have to say my next big genre guilty pleasure is a good romcom (there, I’ve said it). But I don’t mean those sloppy, girly romcoms, right. I’m talking about tough-talking verbally venemous screwballs. So I’ve watched an awful lot of them, including some woeful ones, and I’ve even enjoyed some of the crap ones (hey, you can learn a lot from watching crap films).

But one film I didn’t bother seeing over Xmas was The Holiday. Now, on the face of it, it had a couple of ingredients that might make me slope off quietly for an afternoon and sneak into a multiplex wearing my hat, scarf and shades ensemble: namely it’s a romcom and Kate Winslet’s in it.

But no. I suffered the trailer enough times to make me avoid this one like Van Helsing 2 (should such an abomination ever be visited upon mankind). And it wasn’t until I read Laurie Hutzler’s February newsletter that I realised why.

She analyses why this particular film failed to deliver on the basic audience expectations for its genre. A failure that is so blatant that it shines through even in the trailer.

I’ll leave you to check it out for yourself, but one of the key points really struck a chord with me:

“Romantic comedies work best when there is a strong personal impediment posed by a relationship with an appropriate mate. An appropriate mate is a person who, for a variety of external reasons, SHOULD be a perfect match but isn’t… In The Holiday neither Diaz nor Winslet has an appropriate mate who exerts any kind of obstacle to the soul mate. Diaz and Winslet have both broken with their boyfriends. Law’s wife is dead and Black isn’t involved with anyone.”

So THAT’S what I was detecting unconsciously in the trailers. There was nothing at stake for these characters. No risk, no flouting of convention, no actual conflict. Just two nice, harmless couples inevitably getting together… in a winter wonderland. So desperately inoffensive, in fact, that it’s… well, offensive.

When I transfered my previous newsletter articles to this new site, somehow the article in question didn’t make it.  Here it is:

The Holiday and Catch and Release:

When Romance Doesn’t Deliver Emotionally

In The Holiday Amanda Woods (Cameron Diaz) creates movie trailers from her fabulous home office/studio in Beverly Hills. Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) writes the wedding column for The Daily Telegraph and lives in a small but delightful rural cottage outside London.

Just before Christmas, Iris and Amanda, each following a break-up and not willing to face Christmas at home alone, swap homes via an Internet Home Exchange service.  In rural England, Amanda finds love with Iris’s brother (Jude Law); and in Los Angeles, Iris finds love with a film composer (Jack Black) who works with Amanda’s ex-boyfriend.

In Catch and Release, Gray Wheeler (Jennifer Garner) is stunned by the death of her fiancé on the eve of their wedding.  She finds comfort in the company of his roommates- comic Sam (Kevin Smith), reliable Dennis (Sam Jaeger), and, to Gray’s surprise, Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), a devil-may-care childhood friend.

Fritz, the man Gray viewed as one of the least reliable people in her fiancé’s life, turns out to be the man she leans on most. As secrets about her supposedly perfect fiancé surface, Gray finds herself drawn to a very different kind of man.

These two movies, despite good premises and engaging stars, fail to satisfy on an emotional level.  They are missing three of the fundamental elements that make successful romantic comedies appealing.

Three Fundamental Elements in Appealing Romantic Comedies

These elements are just as important in a romantic subplot or even in a non-romantic emotional partnership in any film or television program.

1. There must be a real “battle” or “battle of the sexes.”

In classic romantic comedies, the love interests take an instant dislike, have a deep distrust or are separated by major philosophical or personal differences. Love interests should have opposite worldviews and views on what life and love is or should be.  They should not agree on anything. Their values should be diametrically opposed.  This isn’t the case with either film.

In both films the love interests are immediately attractive and engaging.  They have small foibles and follies but nothing that produces intense personal conflict. The biggest problem in The Holiday is that Jude Law is drunk when Cameron Diaz first meets him.  In Catch and Release, Timothy Olyphant has quick urgent sex with a waitress at the wake, which Jennifer Garner is embarrassed to observe by happenstance. Although Garner generally disapproves of Olyphant’s playboy antics, she is drawn to him too quickly and easily. Diaz and Law and Winslet and Black are also too easily attracted.

Contrast this with the love interests in the wonderful classic Philadelphia Story. Tracy Lord (Katherine Hepburn) is a stiff and judgmental upper crust socialite.  C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) is her ex-husband, a recovering alcoholic and man about town who works for a sleazy and disreputable gossip magazine.  Her proper social standards clash with his spontaneous and rather naughty sense of fun.

The emotional satisfaction and the pure enjoyment of a romantic comedy is watching the lovers overcome tremendous obstacles and intense objections. The conflict or “battle of the sexes” isn’t sharp enough in The Holiday or in Catch and Release.  There are not strong enough personal impediments to love.  The journey is too easy to be satisfying.

2. Both love interests must grow and/or change through their relationship with one another.

Something profound should be missing in each love interest’s life, character and/or personality. This missing piece is an important personal deficiency in the character.  The problem isn’t just that the character is missing someone to love.  This missing piece or character deficiency must be something the other love interest has in abundance or “to a fault.”

For example:  In Moonstruck Cher is no-nonsense, practical and responsible about all her obligations as a bookkeeper.  She is so practical she is about to settle for a man she doesn’t love but who is a solid member of the community.  What she needs is passion, inspiration and the spark of life.  Nickolas Cage has passion and fire to the extreme.  He needs someone to provide more of a stable base and an even keel.  He needs to forget about his nearly operatic bitterness and move on in his life.  The two lovers challenge and learn from each other.  Their exchange of gifts makes each a better and more complete person.

In a classic love story two imperfect halves come together to form a more perfect whole.  Each character brings something that is vitally necessary to the other’s well-being and completeness.  That critical exchange of gifts is obtained through clash and conflict with the love interest.

Neither The Holiday nor Catch and Release provides an exchange of gifts that is essential to the lovers’ well-being.  None of the love interests is missing that very specific something that only the lover can provide.

3. The lovers must choose the soul mate by rejecting the appropriate mate.

In order for a romantic comedy to work on an emotional level the lovers have to overcome obstacles on three levels.

The external forces, that keep the lovers apart (i.e. differences in culture, class, language, race, gender, age, religion and/or social convention).

The internal forces, that prevent the lovers from getting together (internal values that make each lover question and reject the initial advances that each may receive from the other).

The conflict with others, that keeps the lovers apart.

Romantic comedies work best when there is a strong personal impediment posed by a relationship with an appropriate mate.  An appropriate mate is a person who, for a variety of external reasons, SHOULD be a perfect match but isn’t.  The appropriate mate is someone who is a good match on the outside.  He or she is the person the family or the social circle believes is just the right choice.  These other relationships are horrified that you aren’t being “sensible.”

The soul mate is someone who is wildly inappropriate but who completes you in some vital or fundamental way.   He or she challenges you to risk all for love- ignoring or rejecting family, culture, tradition and social convention.  A lover must be prepared to hurt well-meaning friends and family and the appropriate mate by rejection.  The more compelling the appropriate  mate is, the more difficult and dangerous it is to choose the soul mate instead.

In The Holiday neither Diaz nor Winslet has an appropriate mate who exerts any kind of obstacle to the soul mate.  Diaz and Winslet have both broken with their boyfriends. Law’s wife is dead and Black isn’t involved with anyone. In Catch and Release, Garner’s fiancé is dead.  Olyphant doesn’t seem to be involved with anyone else.  No friend, family member or other significant person objects or presents any obstacle to the lovers in either film.

In essence, neither film demands enough of the lovers.  There is not enough conflict and very little risk involved in any of these pairings.  Falling in love isn’t dangerous for any of the characters.  We have little emotional investment in these stories because so little hangs in the balance.

Nothing in these pleasant but unsatisfying pictures delivers the audience satisfaction of Moonstruck.  To quote Ronny Cammareri played by Nicolas Cage and written by John Patrick Shanley:

“Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn’t know this either, but love don’t make things nice- it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and DIE. The storybooks are BULLSHIT. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and GET in my bed!”

In a romantic comedy, THAT is a happy ending!

Here is a quote that also expresses the Leap of Faith love requires:

“This kind of daring thinking requires momentary surrendering of old beliefs – which is the barrier for most individuals.  Being creatures who find security in habit, people love their beliefs – even if, rather than providing true security, those beliefs lead to suffering and premature death.  If you see the folly in this behavior, and are willing to allow yourself to temporarily suspend certain beliefs, a higher belief can now enter in – and a magnificent change can occur.”  Steve D’Annunzio