Mixed Metaphors

A Filmgoer’s Guide to Summer’s Romantic Comedies

Summertime is here and as expressed in the song from the opera, Porgy and Bess, by George Gershwin with lyrics by DuBose Heyward, “Summertime, and the livin is easy.”  For me as a filmgoer, summertime means afternoon matinees in darkened, air-conditioned movie theaters watching romantic comedies and three Kleenex movies. Some movie fans, especially the young and male, prefer action blockbusters that transport them from the reality of their daily grind, and takes them on a fantasy vacation.  Romantic comedies, which are often disparagingly referred to as “chick flicks,” feel  more like going to a summer festival or fair and enjoying all the carnival confections. 

First a little background on my love affair with movies.  The following story and poem were written in response to a prompt for the LGBTQ Narratives Activist-Writers group. The prompt was simple, take a subject and treat it both as prose and a poem. I chose movies and romantic comedies:

Rom Com Love Bomb (Prose)

First, let me confess, I’m an unabashed film buff. I have been my whole life ever since my parents took me to see my first movie, Walt Disney’s, Bambi. I have vague memories of going on dates with my parents too. As their firstborn child, when they couldn’t find or afford a babysitter, I went to the movies with them. Sometimes the films were frightening to the preschool me. I remember being terrified of red, flesh-eating ants and quicksand after I saw a film set in Ceylon entitled, Elephant Walk.  It starred the young and beautiful Elizabeth Taylor and a herd of elephants; I was mesmerized and forever hooked on the movies.

Fast forward to the late 1950s and early sixties, Saturday night was movie night with Mom and my sister in front of the television. With Pyrex bowls filled with real buttered popcorn in our laps, and the lights turned off, we’d watch Creature Features, scary science fiction movies of the time, like It Came from Outer Space,  The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the original, The Day the Earth Stood Still. This was my mom’s preferred genre, except she was too scared to watch them alone. She’d let us stay up late with her so she wouldn’t get scared. If we’d begin to fall asleep, she’d wake us up until the movie was over and then she’d send us upstairs to our bedroom; frightened and tired girls, scared of our own shadows and creaking footsteps on the stairs.

As I got older, I watched more adult-themed films, sometimes on my own or with my mother and sisters. We graduated to the dramas of the sixties, like The Days of Wine and Roses and Splendor in the Grass. I remember at the age of 16 going to the theatre with mom to see Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. By that time I had become an avid reader of plays; my favorite playwrights were Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and Samuel Beckett. Now, I had to explain the movie’s themes to her. Soon I was attending film societies and festivals in college and discovered art house and foreign films, and the work of director’s like Truffaut, Bergmann, Antonioni and Fellini.

Now that my taste in films grew more sophisticated, I began keeping a secret, about a certain guilty pleasure. I was hooked on romantic comedies. It was as if I was learning everything about love and romance from the most unrealistic and unreliable source possible, and, I believed everything I watched and every word I heard, no matter how cheesy the dialogue was delivered.  A familiar pattern emerged. I’d identify with the characters, their trials and tribulations, and as the story unfolded and hearts would break; I’d mop up tears with Kleenex until the happy ending and the lovers were reunited. It didn’t even matter when I came out as a lesbian, I could still relate to the “girl falls in love with boy, boy leaves girl, and boy and girl get back together” conventional narrative.

Since my last long-term, committed relationship ended, I now watch summer’s romantic comedies with a detached and renewed sensibility. I’ve worked hard over the years to develop healthy and realistic beliefs and expectations about love and relationships, yet it doesn’t take long for me to suspend my disbelief and embrace themes of soul-mates, that there’s a perfect match for everyone, and that love can last a lifetime with the right person.  Yes, I reach for the Kleenex again, sniffle and mop, then realize, I’ve become a victim of the rom com love bomb and leave the theater hopeful that she’s still out there.  I just need to find her and fall in love, again.

Rom Com Love Bomb (Poem)

Watching a romantic comedy,
themes of soul mates, one
lover for life, vex me, perplex me.
I want to believe she’s still out there
that we’re wandering, wondering,
each calling out, who is she, where is she,
we’re searching for each other,
lost in some wilderness of intimacy,
unknotting the tangles of
the wranglers of love,
who lasso us and keep us,
then leave us or heave us out some door.
Some days I feel I’ve been captive
by an irresistible force that became bored
with me, abandoned me, moved on.
I’m still working on forgive and forget
when I realize, my salvation, revelation is
forgive and remember.
I know I sound jaded, yet I’m persuaded
by movies and novels,
poems and pictures,
that love is a song waiting to be sung
when you meet the right one
it can never be wrong.
I have decades of practice, hits and misses,
been a wife, a lover, even the other.
I’ve been long-termed, one-nighted,
divorced and remorseful,
yet I still wake up in the morning
and ask is today the day, I meet her,
greet her in some random place,
share a cup of coffee and conversation,
court her, caress and seduce her,
promise her the best of me, believe her,
get lost in her eyes, let go of the past
embrace her and the future, again.

Lastly, one more poem about the experience of sitting in a movie theater, sometimes alone, with Kleenex in hand:

Weekend Melodrama

Movie matinee love story imprints upon my heart;
a template is stamped awaiting its matching part,
loneliness expressed in sighs this Saturday afternoon,
as I give myself permission, open-heartedly to cry
in the darkened movie theatre
in softly wept whimpers,
like a small abandoned animal
separated from its litter. Pitiful am I.

This Summer’s  Romantic Comedies

I’ve been lucky this week to receive invitations and free tickets to a couple of this summer’s newest romantic comedies. Earlier in the week I saw Obvious Child followed by Begin Again. As part of the agreement with the movie site gofobo.com, I posted mini reviews on their site plus my Facebook page. The reviews follow:

Obvious Child

On Tuesday, I saw an advance screening of Obvious Child at Sundance 608 in Madison, Wisconsin.  Obvious Child, a controversial comedy (you don’t often see those two words paired together) features a breakout performance by Jenny Slate. It’s a romantic comedy with a twist. The film is smartly written, perfectly performed, and relatable. Did I tell you that it deals with abortion, which is not a funny subject and often heart wrenching? It does and it handles it poignantly. Slate is funny, smart and we’ll see more of her. See this film which premieres Friday, 6/27.

 

 

 

Begin Again

On Wednesday, I saw an advance screening of Begin Again, a romantic comedy, and like most romantic comedies, it helps to suspend your disbelief enough to sit back and enjoy what is sometimes improbable in real life. Begin Again is that kind of story. A down on his luck record executive has the day from hell, and while he’s drowning his sorrows drinking triple shots of bourbon in a New York bar he finds his salvation in the form of a young, reluctant singer-songwriter. Mark Ruffalo plays the record executive who loses his job and rediscovers his creative mojo.

Ruffalo turns in another career performance that successfully carries the film. He is supported by actress Keira Knightley as the singer-songwriter, singing for the first time in a movie and Adam Levine, a singer, acting in his first film performance. Levine portrays a singer who finds fame and soon dumps his girlfriend and writing partner (Knightley) after an affair. The real star of Begin Again is the music and the message that if we lead with our heart and share our passion, everything works out in the end.  Begin Again was written and directed by John Carney whose earlier music-themed movie, Once, has been adapted into a Broadway musical.

 

 

 

As a convention of most romantic comedies screenwriters address a secondary theme or story arc that provides the backdrop for the love story, for the characters to meet, flirt, fall in love or lust, retreat, and then we’re asked to see the movie to find out how it ends for the couple. In the two preceding stories, Obvious Child deals with the consequences  of a one night stand and the main character’s decision whether or not to have an abortion. In Begin Again lost souls meet and their shared passion for music transforms them and their lives.

Coming Soon This Summer to a Theater Near You…

A Long Way Down

Nick Hornby, the British novelist, screenwriter and lyricist, whose movies based on his books, High Fidelity and About a Boy have been huge hits has a new novel, A Long Way Down adapted for film which premiers this summer in July. It’s a dark comedy starring Imogen Poots, Toni Collette, Pierce Brosnan, and Aaron Paul as four strangers who happen to meet on the roof of a London building on New Year’s Eve, each with the intent of committing suicide. The four make a pact to come down from the roof and lean on each other to give life a second chance. At first read it doesn’t sound romantic or comic, but the trailer portrays our foursome romancing each other and perhaps falling in love with life again.

What If

Another romantic comedy which premieres in August posits the common question, “Can best friends be soul mates?”  From the film’s website:

What If is the story of medical school dropout Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe), who’s been repeatedly burned by bad relationships.  So while everyone around him, including his roommate Allan (Adam Driver) seems to be finding the perfect partner (Mackenzie Davis), Wallace decides to put his love life on hold.   It is then that he meets Chantry (Zoe Kazan) an animator who lives with her longtime boyfriend Ben (Rafe Spall).  Wallace and Chantry form an instant connection, striking up a close friendship.  Still, there is no denying the chemistry between them, leading the pair to wonder, what if the love of your life is actually your best friend?