Is Comedy-Drama for Grown-Ups Dead on Film?
Finding a place for grown-up movies today.
It’s baffling to look back at Terms of Endearment (1983) and know it was the second highest grossing film in the US that year. The only movie that made more money was Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, for obvious reasons. One couldn’t imagine a more different pair of hits, and it’s certainly difficult to imagine a movie like Terms of Endearment grossing anywhere close to $108M today (that’s $272M adjusted for inflation).
That’s not because it’s a bad movie — but it’s not the kind of project major studios are sinking a lot of money into these days. And it’s certainly not the kind of film audiences still flock to their local multiplex to see on opening night. In 1983, there was room at the cinema for movies like Return of the Jedi and Terms of Endearment to co-exist. Both have entertainment value.
Today, films broadly analogous to Terms of Endearment — like Golden Globe winner Lady Bird (2017) — can still be profitable and critical darlings, but that example made almost $220M less than Terms did in today’s money. Alarmingly, only one of 2018's 10 most successful movies wasn’t part of an established franchise: the Freddy Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
This isn’t me criticising superhero movies or blockbusters, but it’s hard to look at lists of the highest grossing films and not feel aggrieved by the absence of grown-up comedy-dramas. It’s a sub-genre that barely exists now. There’s clearly money going towards smaller, character-driven films, but more could be done to promote and distribute ones that deserve to be seen.
It’s not just a problem affecting cinemas, either. Last year, Netflix all but buried Tamara Jenkins’ beautiful Private Life (2018) — which is bizarre given it’s a Netflix Original production. Subscribers to the streaming service were overwhelmed with marketing about mildly received fare like Birdbox (2018), but most don’t even realise Private Life exists — despite being rated 94% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and appearing on many year-end best-of lists.
Is that because it’s a gentle comedy-drama aimed at adults? I can imagine Netflix would have treated Terms of Endearment the same way in ‘83.
I chose Terms of Endearment to make this argument because of what a perfectly formed but hard-to-sell movie it was. What’s the pitch? ‘A mother and daughter argue for 15 years?’ It’s without a clear narrative hook because James L. Brooks made a movie in which lives simply unfold. People come in and out, scenes play out slowly, and life just kind of happens. Even when the dramatic stakes are raised, there’s still this wonderful naturalistic progression that seems to say these things happen and they are just kind of normal. You take from them what you can there are not always lessons and neat catchphrases.
There is graceful maturity in films such as these, and even when films try to capture the weird messiness of family life with less success —such as Chris Columbus’s Stepmom (1988) — there’s still something to be admired and to attach yourself to. Stepmom is not a great film but it does contain truths that are far more effective than things I’ve seen in better but less humane films. And as with Terms, it’s a movie aimed squarely at adults but without necessarily trying to be, which is an admirable thing.
There’s a weird belief in today’s studio movies that comedies for adults have to be certified ‘15’ (or a hard-R for the US market). It has to be raucous and raunchy and constantly remind the audience how these characters are grown-ups. We can say ‘fuck’ now. Again, this isn’t a snobby slam of this brand of comedies. Game Night (2018) was fantastic and Blockers (2018) was a solid and sweet film, but so often these types of ‘adult comedies’ are flat-out bad and seem to operate on the idea that adults going wild is the most impossibly funny thing you could imagine. Office Christmas Party (2016), I’m looking at you).
There’s definitely room for bawdy comedies if they’re done well, but it’s a shame there isn’t as much room for comedies for grown-ups that don’t follow set-piece structures and that are more carefully written. Adult comedy doesn’t have to exclusively mean what it’s come to mean.
Maybe it’s that studios have given up on niche sub-genres and that, somehow, adult comedy-dramas have been rolled into a niche carpet and thrown off a bridge. More and more, you see high-grossing films that try extremely hard to appeal to everyone. Studios don’t just want the parents going to see a movie, they want the whole family to tag along. And why wouldn’t they? I mean, what 10-year-old in a million years would look through their parent’s DVD collection and exclaim ‘oh, Terms of Endearment! James L. Brooks’ directorial debut, now this I gotta see!’? So demographically speaking, perhaps movies like Terms have become niche now, and maybe an audience of adults looking for a gentle yet emotional comedy-drama is not enough.
On top of this, filmgoing habits have changed radically. In the US and Canada in 2017, audiences fell to their lowest numbers in almost 25 years. That doesn’t mean going to the cinema is dead and won’t bounce back, but things like this do mean studios might become less and less willing to take chances.
Not helping these “niche movies” is how they often don’t come from beloved source material to guarantee some level of public awareness. Sure, the book did okay, but what’s okay in book terms against an existing franchise property that has grossed over a billion worldwide? And what can you put in the promotional material? Straight-up comedies have the luxury of clear-cut jokes, and action movies the luxury of cool damn stunts — you can throw both of these in a trailer and it’ll look great. But trailer-makers often fail at the task of knowing how to sell a movie that contains neither of these, so they end up brutally misrepresenting the film in marketing. You can imagine them pulling their hair and saying ‘this trailer has to be three minutes long and I’ve only got two minutes of Diane Keaton looking out of a window!’
There’s something lovely and affirming about the work of filmmakers like James L. Brooks, Nora Ephron, and Greta Gerwig (I’m excited to see what she does with Little Women). They appeal to a television viewer’s sensibility; an attitude of let’s hang out with these characters for a while. But I’m glad they’re movies because movies shouldn’t just be one thing… and TV shouldn’t just be another.
I want these movies to keep existing, and for people to see them and for them to make a lot of money. Maybe studios are telling audiences that they need more now. That a comedy-drama about a family isn’t enough. I sometimes crave a Mission: Impossible-style experience on a big screen, but there are more films like that in cinemas than there are ones like Lady Bird. I don’t want the latter of those types to feel like “anomalies”, and I don’t want studios to think occasional breakthrough hits are flukes. The playing field should be adjusted a little. You don’t have to scrap the tentpole blockbuster franchises, but we should try and make a little more room for genres of films like adult-skewing comedy-dramas, which are far too rare these days.
Maybe it’s time for a sequel — 2erms of Endearment: Aurora Reborn.
Header image © Paramount Pictures.
