Romantic Comedy: The Unsettling Genre

Simply because settling down does not imply or entail settling for less.

The life force that is Susan (Katharine Hepburn) sways precariously on an unstable ladder as David (Cary Grant) reaches for her from atop a dinosaur skeleton. As he hoists her up, the skeleton falls and crumbles, in a paleontological metaphor of his shattered resistance to romance.

The chronically timid Daniel (Albert Brooks) obstinately, desperately holds on to the moving vehicle that will take his afterlife love Julia (Meryl Streep) away for all eternity. His courage and perseverance melt the hearts of the powers that be, the doors open, and the lovers unite forever and ever.

Ex-confirmed bachelor Charles (Hugh Grant) declares his love and devotion to sweetheart Carrie (Andie MacDowell) by reversing the expected wording and coming up with the most stereotype-subverting marriage proposal in the history of romantic comedy: “Do you think… you might agree not to marry me? Do you?” Her answer, befitting a bride (-not-to-be), comes promptly: “I do.”

A good romantic comedy is an act of rebellion. It is a private gesture of defiance; a small-scale victory of love against all odds and norms. Most importantly, it signals the triumph of individual choice in a world of conformity. Although wedding bells have traditionally sounded the tune of propriety to a chorus of societal nods, in romantic comedies it is a wholly different tune they sing. Here it is not about what society condones, but what the individual needs and what it will take to fulfill the need. The image of the very pregnant mega movie star Anna (Julia Roberts) lying peacefully in the lap of her totally non-mega bookselling husband William (Hugh Grant) in Notting Hill, becomes a metaphor for a woman freed from the fetters of stardom, who can have a normal life again and be loved for who she is.

When Kate (Meg Ryan) decides to marry Luc (Kevin Kline) and settle to the quiet life of a farmer and housewife in provincial France (French Kiss), her choice is as defiant as that of Rita (Julie Walters) who decides against a life with Frank (Michael Caine) in Australia (Educating Rita), simply because it is a choice. From being emotionally dependent on other people’s lives, these two romantic heroines have grown into independent individuals in charge of their own lives. Since we are in the realm of romantic comedy, the main motivator and liberating factor is the other sex.

Leo McCarey’s 1937 movie The Awful Truth follows its protagonists Lucy (Irene Dunne) and Jerry (Cary Grant) on the long and bumpy road to a divorce decree. It is a road strewn with feelings and decisions on the rebound, witty banter, and implied meanings. It is a funny story told alternately in breezes of double entendre and gusts of screwball exuberance. Words and images are rich in subtext. There is more in a look or a raised eyebrow than several pages of dialog would capture.

In the famous nightclub scene, Lucy and Jerry are practically divorced already and each is there with a new partner: Lucy with Daniel (Ralph Bellamy), whom she plans to marry as soon as her divorce comes through, and Jerry with the pretty but brainpower-challenged Dixie Belle (Joyce Compton).

Throughout this sequence everything indicates that Lucy and Jerry are a team, set apart from their escorts and surroundings. The moment Jerry sits next to Lucy, she has trouble taking her eyes off him. The camera frames them in snug two-shots, where three would be a crowd. Image and body language signal Jerry and Lucy’s unspoken rapport. The “sane and considerate” Dan is blissfully immune to sarcasm and innuendo. Only Lucy can decipher the scorn and glee when Jerry makes him the butt of his jokes. (Dan: “Do you know what they call me back home?” Jerry: “I can guess.”) She cringes every time Dan raves about yet another glorious prospect of their future life together, in Oklahoma City no less, a prospect that is far from glorious in her book– or Jerry’s.

When Dixie Belle performs her number, it is Jerry and Lucy, now sitting cozily close to each other, that again share the same feeling of painful embarrassment and tacit disapproval. While Dan’s reaction ranges from prudish self-consciousness to raw lust, Jerry and Lucy occupy their own sphere of wrinkle-free etiquette and quick reasoning. One look at their faces and you can see the wheels turning.

Later in the film, when Lucy makes an unexpected appearance as “Lola”, Jerry’s “sister”, we get another chance to relish screwball comedy at its best, and also gain deeper insight into what makes these characters tick. Lucy does her best (and succeeds) to embarrass Jerry in front of his ultra-wealthy future in-laws, and it is fun to see his usually glib self at a loss for words for a change. But is he angry? Hell, no! He is loving it. When Lucy pushes the envelope of bad taste even further by performing Dixie Belle’s tawdry number, Jerry’s face registers delightful surprise at Lucy’s sexy impishness. Now he knows for sure: She is out to get him and he would love to be gotten.

In what way did these characters eventually refuse to settle for less? Let us sum up their course:

When their marriage hit a snag, Lucy and Jerry did the thing expected of them and filed for divorce. Then they felt insecure and frustrated, so they once again did what was expected of them and sought out new partners. But all the while nothing seemed right… until they acknowledged the “awful truth” that they were only right for each other and could not be happy apart. For them reconciliation and (re)marriage, not divorce, is an act of defiance. This is their take on not settling for less.

The Awful Truth is a characteristic example of romantic comedy’s screwball origins. It also demonstrates how much can be accomplished with character charisma and chemistry, rich subtext, wit, visual writing, and lean imagery.

Twenty-five years later, another legendary couple holds its own against the world in the name of love and companionship. In Mervyn LeRoy’s A Majority of One (1962), Mrs. Jacoby (Rosalind Russell) and Mr. Asano (Alec Guinness) take on racial prejudice and the aftermath of WW2, cultural differences and language barriers, bigoted family members and abysmal geographical distances– and win.

Both The Awful Truth and A Majority of One are film adaptations of stage plays (by Arthur Richman and Leonard Spigelgass respectively) and they both explore a unique aspect of falling in love, but this is where the similarity ends.

While The Awful Truth is a whirlwind of extreme and extravagant situations about folly, jealousy and false pride, A Majority of One is a gentle story about mature love. A Jewish widow from Brooklyn and a widowed Japanese businessman meet on a voyage to Tokyo. She has lost a son in the war. He has lost a son and a daughter. She struggles to make ends meet. He has more money than God. She is forthright and outspoken. He is formal and restrained.

There are no Best Friend characters to come to the rescue in this film, only Antagonists. They come in the form of Mrs. Jacoby’s daughter and son-in-law, whose obsession with (their own custom-made version of) “correctness” stands in the way of the romance. However, the real antagonistic forces are abstract: intolerance, prejudice, bigotry.

A Majority of One features no madcap sequences, but the humor trickles through the juxtaposition of the two cultures every time the main characters interact. The comedic peak of the story is the scene at Mr. Asano’s house, where a kimonoed Mrs. Jacoby embraces Japanese customs with the unsullied open-mindedness of a child, and discovers a new and intoxicating world in the consumption of sake. There is nothing affected about her and it is this rare quality that makes her lovable.

It is a low-key film, but this does not render the emotions less intense or the conflicts less genuine. All the ingredients of a romantic comedy are in place: a seemingly disparate couple with strong personalities, a meaningful first encounter, witty dialog, an exotic setting, comedic elements, exterior (and, most importantly, interior) hurdles to be overcome, a protestation of love (Mr. Asano: “In my way, I love you”), separation, and the final (happy) resolution across half the world.

While A Majority of One spans across a continent and an ocean, the 1993 cult film Groundhog Day is spatially and temporally claustrophobic. It narrates the story of Phil (Bill Murray), a cynical weatherman who finds himself waking up in Punxsutawney on February 2^nd — day after day after day.

If romantic comedy heroes are restless, nonconformist personalities, well, they do not come more restless and nonconformist than Phil Connors. Or so we think.

Phil approves of nothing and no one. His job at the TV station is too trite, his colleagues are too dumb, the hotel is too small, the landlady is too ignorant, Punxsutawney is too provincial, Groundhog Day is too pass�. In other words, nothing ever measures up to his standards and ambitions.

Anything wrong with this picture?

Just about everything.

Phil’s “rebelliousness” amounts to little more than the tantrum of a child. He is insensitive and conceited, bent on throwing poisoned darts of mockery at every human being that crosses his path. There can be no romance between him and Rita (Andie MacDowell) until he has made himself ready for and worthy of true love. Groundhog Day is unique in many ways, one of them being that it requires the suspension of romance, as well as our disbelief, before the romance can blossom.

Throughout the movie we witness one of the widest character arcs in cinematic history. Phil goes through every conceivable stage of mood/attitude/plan change before he can reach what Mr. Asano would call “the serenity of the enlightened spirit”. But while Mr. Asano and Mrs. Jacoby had to “cross a bridge”, Phil’s task at first appears to be Sisyphean. Lost in a cruel existential joke, he just keeps being himself on an ever-increasing scale. Only this time the joke is on him.

Phil repeatedly experiences denial, anger, depression, gluttony, hedonism, lawlessness, death, and delusions of immortality (“I am a god”). Not enough. He may wake up every morning feeling “fine, not a dent in the fender,” but there are plenty of dents in his soul that need to be fixed before he can move on.

An indefinable amount of time and ordeal later, he declares his love to Rita when she is asleep. This time he is sincere. He does not aim to ingratiate himself or get casual, guilt-free sex. He acknowledges his unworthiness, and this marks an important step towards his liberation. His resigned acceptance warms to proactive affirmation of his destiny and a benign purposefulness he has never felt before. The “good deed” montage is evocative of similar sequences in the Superman movies. Phil is not driven by malice or self-indulgence anymore, but by a melancholy, desperate need for companionship. He earns Rita’s respect, trust, and love. He has revolted against and defeated all that was drab and weary in his old self.

And time begins to flow again.

At its most formulaic, a romantic comedy goes through three consecutive stages, namely, meet-lose-get. Groundhog Day, while adhering to the formula, adds the supernatural twist of a pumped-up second stage, i.e. meet-loseⁿ-get. It is a high-concept story that does not get swallowed up in its cleverness, but shines with it.