Romantic Comedies – What's to Love?
Posted August 10, 2011There is a soft spot in my heart that compels me to watch Sleepless in Seattle whenever I’m channel surfing. I see this not as weakness, but as devoted appreciation for very specific components of successful Romantic Comedy. This appreciation has been encouraged anew by a recent viewing of the incredibly satisfying and immensely endearing Crazy, Stupid, Love which I recommend for any fans of th
e genre as well as anyone who likes a good movie.
But from where does this appreciation for a well-crafted romantic comedy come? For the purposes of my exploration, I will blame the development of this palate equally on Rob Reiner and William Shakespeare. While you may be fairly familiar with both of these gentlemen, let me share a little personal perspective to illuminate this seemingly unlikely connection:
I grew up without a tv and most definitely did not have parents that would take me to see anything exceeding a PG-13 rating until I was fully age appropriate, so I had to sneakily watch my first rated-R movies – Stand By Me and Misery, at a slumber party. It wasn’t until recently that I uncovered a funny synchronicity: my first rated R movies were not only both Stephen King stories, but were both directed by Rob Reiner.
We’ll leave the Stephen King aspect alone for now (he’s not so romantic), but I think much of the quality in those films can be credited to Rob Reiner’s vision, for he is not only responsible for Stand By Me and Misery, but he has also had punctuated moments of filmic genius throughout his career (albeit the majority of them were early on).
In reviewing Reiner’s oeuvre, it made me wish he could still pull off something as charming as Stand by Me, The Sure Thing or any of the grand trifecta of his romantic comedy capacity: The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, and This Is Spinal Tap (yes, I think Spinal Tap has clear romantic elements and obvious comedic ones).
Reiner’s particular brand of witty, humanistic, situational, relationship-based story telling pleasantly lends itself to love stories and begins to flesh out my favorite aspects of romantic comedies. And here’s where Shakespeare comes in. Let’s refer to Dr. Debora Schwartz’s study guide on the Conventions of Shakespearean Romantic Comedy.
- The main action is about love.
- The would-be lovers must overcome obstacles and misunderstandings before uniting.
- Frequently it contains elements of the improbable, the fantastic, the supernatural, or the miraculous or may merely involve improbable turns of events.
- Frequently (but not always), it contains a philosophical aspect involving weightier themes: personal identity; the importance of love in human existence; the power of language to help or hinder communication; the transforming power of poetry and art; the disjunction between appearance and reality; the power of dreams and illusions.
Although these make a fair amount of sense to me, it’s still pretty easy to make a terrible love story filled with these conventions. Reiner crap heaps like Rumor Has It…, Alex & Emma and The Story of Us are all singularly excellent examples of such inexcellence. How is it that a talented director can lose the magic so thoroughly?
Reiner’s not alone: I see this similar trajectory, though with less proliferation and less quality, in Nora Ephron’s career – she worked with Reiner in crafting When Harry Met Sally; her holiday film Mixed Nuts is quaint, and Sleepless in Seattle has some very special moments of romcom perfection as well. But seriously, what the heck happened with Bewitched? And though there are moments of aptitude in Julie and Julia, it never quite satisfies the way her early nineties romcoms do. To find a little more clarification for quality, I’m going to lean heavily on philosopher Stanley Cavell for pointers on identifying excellence in a romantic comedy - and for some scholarly justification for loving such films.
Cavell is one of my favorite thinkers, devoting serious time to the study of Shakespeare and to the 
American romantic comedy tradition, specifically to a style of film he identifies as “comedies of remarriage”, which includes endearing classics such as His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940) and Adam’s Rib (1949).
These films uphold many of the Shakespearean romantic comedy tropes, and, as Cavell argues, beneath the comic slapstick and innuendo is something more: an authentic effort to create a new romantic basis for union rooted in love.
This idea of love over societal expectation had its revolutionary aspects in Shakespeare’s day, but 1940s America embraced this idea as the middle class burgeoned and conflicts of religion and class could idealistically, and at moments nearly realistically, fall aside in order to let love conquer all. All this and a little something extra within the interactions of the characters that will make an audience chuckle.
So, we’re talking about transcendence with a smile, right? Beyond the above listed conventions, a resonant, adorable romantic comedy (as well as the featured couple) will overcome and, more importantly, transcend conventions, boundaries, and/or pain through love and affection.
Do we dare designate additional qualifications for effective romcoms? I suppose we probably ought to. For me, the most visceral magic comes from four filmic aspects: the aforementioned cheerful transcendence facilitated by communication, maturation and aesthetics.
Basically, I like people trying to share (developing their unique and endearing form of interaction while allowing for pratfalls and faked orgasms), growing successfully in order to share (showing us why we should care) and doing it surrounded by pretty things, like wallpaper and trees and dogs and cities. The setting means more than merely backdrop in a romcom – it frames how a couple lives together, accentuating the rarity and specialness of the featured relationship. I have no patience for a romcom without a quirky and well-appointed set.
But let’s go back to the perhaps now too-oft mentioned concept of transcendence. Now, let us consider what it would mean for a good romcom to transcend the genre itself. I see this happening in my contemporary favorites when we see directors fearlessly mix genres; when romcoms successfully manipulate other genre tropes as framing devices, it results in some beautifully refreshing romances.
This is evident in Groundhog Day, The Whole Wide World, The Princess Bride, Home for the Holidays, Grosse Pointe Blank, Prelude to a Kiss, Joe Versus the Volcano, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Splash, and Happy Accidents: films that masterfully blur the line between fantasy or action or science fiction or family drama or biopic and romantic comedy.
And it is in this genre-mixing where I find a little bit of hope for Rob Reiner, demonstrated in this upcoming sequel to When Harry Met Sally. Perhaps Reiner is not entirely lost to us.
If there’s a possibility that you’ve missed any of the quality films listed in the article or below, quick, queue them up and have a marathon!
40 Year Old Virgin
Adam’s Rib
Bringing Up Baby
Clueless
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Grosse Pointe Blank
Groundhog Day
Happy Accidents
Harold and Maude
His Girl Friday
Home for the Holidays
Joe Versus the Volcano
Mixed Nuts
Moonstruck
Prelude to a Kiss
Roman Holiday
Sleepless in Seattle
Splash
The Philadelphia Story
The Princess Bride
The Sure Thing
The Whole Wide World
This is Spinal Tap
When Harry Met Sally
While you Were Sleeping
Working Girl
