Feature Story: Romantic Comedies
In my experience, it’s been hard to watch a romantic comedy and walk away thinking wow, what a piece of art. They were popcorn flicks, box office cash grabs to get couples in the seats. It wasn’t until recently, when I watched some less conventional films in the genre that I understood the artistry and history behind these movies. There’s a story to the romantic comedy as an art form, how the formula has evolved with changing social attitudes and managed to look back and laugh at the circumstances of its inception. We’ll be looking at four films previously covered on this blog, Twentieth Century (1934), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Sex and the Single Girl (1964),and Down With Love (2003). All these romantic comedies that bring a little something new to the table, but retain the essence of what makes a “typical” rom-com.
Our earliest example here is Twentieth Century (1934) directed by Howard Hawks, starring John Barrymore and Carol Lombard. In what was known as a screwball comedy, a predecessor to the modern rom-com, we get a look at the very beginnings of this genre in film. Filmed before the advent of color, Twentieth Century lacks any of the color symbolism you’d see in the other films we’ll be touching on. This was also before the Sexual Revolution, so while one could read a feminist message from this movie, it’d be rather alien compared to the feminism of today. In fact, on the surface, Twentieth Century comes off as rather blatantly misogynistic, with Lombard’s character being tricked into submission serving as the movie’s “happy ending”. All this goes to show how far the genre has progressed since the early days of Hollywood, but Hawks’ screwball comedy does contain elements that we associate with romantic comedy to this day. The opening meeting, comic relief characters, the second act where our leads break up, their eventual reunion: all staples of the genre as we see it today. Even the most iconic cinematographic element- the zoom in, close-up kiss- can be seen all the way back in the 30's.
Now let’s jump ahead 30 years to Sex and the Single Girl, a romantic comedy that embodied the burgeoning liberation of the 60’s as well as the waning power of the Hays code. Now in bold technicolor, Sex and the Single Girl starts to introduce color symbolism with with Natalie Wood’s black and white wardrobe choice, and her change to bright yellow by the end of the film. It took some risks with the rules of the code, showing Tony Curtis in a woman’s robe, mocking ineffective policemen, it just one of many movies that pushed the limits and led to the dissolution of the code four years later.
By the sixties feminism had come a long way, and Sex and the Single Girl appropriately tried to comment on the blurring of gender roles that was just starting at that time. Yet, director Richard Quine seems to focus more on the comedy here than the changing dynamics of romance. The comic relief characters are now the lead’s sidekicks who provide a fun B-plot, a narrative structure that would be borrowed by many later rom-coms. The opening scene in a meeting is of course a rom-com staple, and our leads uniting at an airport before one takes off has become a cliché over the years. In many senses, this is the closest to a “typical” rom-com that we’ll talk about today. It’s not overly meta (despite the Jack Lemmon reference), it sticks to the basic rom-com formula, and it’s mostly in line with the post-code themes and subject matter we’d see today. The main difference is how it approaches these themes and the general style of the time.
Moving along chronologically, let’s examine Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2002 critical darling, Punch-Drunk Love. An oddball (note: NOT a screwball) in the rom-com genre, the Adam Sandler vehicle forgoes the witty banter of the previous examples for a more anxious, true-to-life dialogue style. Instead of opening on a meeting, we get our male lead alone in an empty room. Parts of the story are as convoluted as Sex and the Single Girl, but they’re superfluous to the actual plot. The cinematography is complex, with many tracking shots and long takes, and the soundtrack oscillates between heart-racing anxiety and harmonious bliss. It’s far from the romantic comedies discussed above, partly because here the focus is on the essence of romance itself, the comedy’s just an added bonus. See the scene below.
Punch-Drunk Love is not the average romantic comedy. It’s a movie about the suffocating anxiety of loneliness and the pains and mistakes that come with falling in love. And while the films that preceded it can be said to embody the struggle of love, they do so with a laugh, the whole ordeal is meant to be looked at humorously. In this film, with its stretches of silence and the blue hue that hangs over most scenes, there’s a seriousness you won’t find in many rom-coms. The blue and red wardrobe choices for our leads is reminiscent of Sex and the Single Girl’s color symbolism, and of course there’s still a unifying kiss on the lips at the end. But Anderson films them in silhouette, their bodies becoming one shape as they unite. Punch-Drunk Love is a rom-com with highbrow artistry, an attempt to elevate the genre by eschewing all but the most essential genre conventions.
The last film we’ll take a look at is the extremely meta satire Down With Love (2002). Directed by Peyton Reed and inspired by Sex and the Single Girl, Down With Love is a sort of loving parody of classic rom-coms. The plot is almost identical to the 1964 Richard Quine film, with all the clichés turned up to 11. Every aspect is there, comic sidekicks, a bafflingly complex plot, false identities, rejection and eventual reunion. The characters are appropriately one-dimensional, much like our first two rom-com examples, and their banter is fittingly witty as well. It’s an attempt to create a prototypical 60’s rom-com, and laugh at how ridiculous the stories and characters were. It’s noteworthy that this self-aware satire of the genre hit theaters just a year after Punch-Drunk Love, perhaps the peak of mastery for the genre. After a film like Anderson’s, one that fully conveyed the themes of the genre with a maturity and realness that still managed to be funnier than most whimsical romantic comedies, how can you not look back and laugh? Reed showed an endearment for the films he mocked in Down With Love, like a father chuckling at his son’s baby pictures. Rom-coms had come a long way since the days of John Barrymore and Tony Curtis, and Down With Love served as a reminder of just how much the genre had evolved.
