Script: Must Love Gimmicks

A friend of mine read my post on Chicken Run, and commented how sad it was that we think of rom-coms as unfunny. It got me thinking.

Just what the hell happened to the romantic comedy? I can’t think of the last time I saw a good one… except maybe Shaun of the Dead. But hey, they can’t all have zombies. So what happened to this once strong and mighty genre?

The answer might lie in Must Love Dogs.

Must Love Dogs is bursting with clichéd rom-com gimmicks. Whether it’s the dreaded “suddenly burst into song for no apparent reason or comic value because a brief moment of karaoke worked in When Harry Met Sally” or the ol’ “pointless car chase that is for… um… condoms. Yeah, they’re on the run in a car the male protagonist can’t possibly afford doing his shitty yet artistic and eccentrically full of integrity job for condoms.”

They fall into the “let’s reference a movie that was actually good, by having our character be a big fan, in a blatant attempt to rub some of that shine off on our dog” trap. John Cusack’s character, for no viable reason, has a thing for Dr Zhivago. And maybe that’s part of the problem – the characters have no viable reason to do anything. They’re watery shadows of what good rom-com characters should be. They have no depth, no history, and, to quote my friend at Reversals, lame-o cookie-cutter jobs that don’t say anything about who they are.

Then there’s the “older woman who gets a surprise when her internet boyfriend turns up and is only 15 years-old”. The climactic run to intercept the love interest as s/he is about to do something that will take her/him away from her/his real love forever, is terribly and unintentionally parodied in a pointless swim in the river – for no reason. There’s no urgency here, John Cusack’s just thinking about selling out by selling his boat to a jerky yuppy. Which has no meaning to this story, because his relationship with Diane Lane isn’t built around his artistic integrity, so who cares?

The rom-com needs new life. It’s cannibalized itself so much that each new entry is only so much re-vomit of stuff we’ve seen a million times. This doesn’t have to be true. Must Love Dogs could have worked new angles and didn’t. The idea that this couple fit because they like dogs is only mentioned in passing and neither one actually owns a dog.

I realize I’m being pretty cranky here. But this is a genre I love and miss. Part of me is desperately awaiting the Z-Boys to come and use their surfing skills to reinvent skateboarding – because that’s what this genre needs. A fresh twist, a new influence. It happened to the noir, it happened to the western… please, let it happen to the rom-com.

Putting zombies in Shaun was a step in the right direction. But really, how can you go wrong with the walking dead?