comment #1

Hallick says ...

"The last romantic drama that even flirted with acknowledging this? Beats me."

The Dutchess? And most other period pieces that fall under the "you must marry this rich and powerful dullard so the audience will swoon over the affair you have with the indigent lover you keep on the side who couldn't hang onto to you for a week under normal circumstances" umbrella.

That's why the working class lover in your typically lame love triangle is always slanted to be better looking, more passionate, younger, etc, while the well off guy is always made to be cold, humorless and easily abusive.

comment #2

Sean says ...

Anderson says that HJNTIY "may also be the first contemporary escapist comedy that feels fully aware of its place in the economic vortex. The lushness, the leisure, the vicarious wealth are all balms to soothe our savaged selves as we look away from the news and onto the screen. Given the state of things, such a movie almost seems like an act of charity toward the public. It's not screwball comedy, but the underlying sentiments are the same."

This is really nothing new, and is also an answer to the implicit question of Jeff's second paragraph -- movie magic relies on glamour, so if you're trading on that most basic kind of movie magic, you're going to have pretty people in pretty places. While in some ways it's political/a sellout/etc. etc., the fantasy and pleasure to the eye of beautiful people and their handsome trappings is just part of the Hollywood idiom. Not all movies are Hollywood romantic comedies, but for movies that are, this is as much a staple of the genre. We can't be any more churlish about it than we can about the presence of, say, killing in a horror film. (Which is not to say that you can't avoid either Friends-style apartments in your romcom or deaths in your horror flick and still have it be your basic Hollywood movie, but those will always be minority cases.)

comment #3

marinmovies says ...

"movie magic relies on glamour, so if you're trading on that most basic kind of movie magic, you're going to have pretty people in pretty places. While in some ways it's political/a sellout/etc. etc., the fantasy and pleasure to the eye of beautiful people and their handsome trappings is just part of the Hollywood idiom. Not all movies are Hollywood romantic comedies, but for movies that are, this is as much a staple of the genre."

I have to disagree with the basic premise of that statement. Movie magic only relies on glamour in the absence of genuine alchemy. If all the elements of a movie - the acting, the set decor, the music, the cinematography, the script etc. - don't come together, well just throw on some Dolce & Gabbana and shoot your scenes in the South of France, right?

Hollywood romantic comedies are so woefully deficient because they are consistently unable to convey any kind of magic that isn't accompanied by material glamour. Look at My Wife is an Actress, a reasonably good French romantic comedy. The main character there is a world-famous actress (as are so many of the leading characters in H'wood rom-coms) but she lives in a very normal looking apartment with clothes scattered on the floor. Her husband is shorter than her. She may even wear the same outfit more than once in the movie. Her husband drives a beat-up looking VW. All those thing allowed me to believe in the romantic aspect of the film because they make the characters relatable.
Who can possibly relate to Scarlett Johansson or Jennifer Connelly worrying about whether or not a guy is into her? Sorry, not buying it.

comment #4

Sean says ...

I have to disagree with the basic premise of that statement. Movie magic only relies on glamour in the absence of genuine alchemy. If all the elements of a movie - the acting, the set decor, the music, the cinematography, the script etc. - don't come together, well just throw on some Dolce & Gabbana and shoot your scenes in the South of France, right?

I don't think your conclusion follows from your my statement. Glamour alone can't carry a movie. But it is prescribed by the genre. Even when Hollywood comedies and romances find alchemy, and plenty of them do, those movies are still set in luxurious trappings because that's the contract with the audience. Your description of My Wife is an Actress would match that of at least half of Woody Allen's comedies, and I'm not invalidating either as successful romantic comedies, but neither really pertain to what Anderson is talking about -- "balms to soothe our savaged selves as we look away from the news and onto the screen." The fact that the news right now is especially bad does not pertain in any way to the fact that HJNTIY has that soothing ability.

comment #5

lesterg says ...

My favorite moment of ridiculously unrealistic on-screen wealth last year was Greg Kinnear's character in Baby Mama. He plays a struggling juice bar manager who enjoys packing massive works of art and Grade A appliances into an urban apartment the size of an aircraft hanger.

comment #6

Josh Massey says ...

"The last romantic drama that even flirted with acknowledging this? Beats me."

I don't know, Reality Bites? Except I always considered the hip, poor Ethan Hawke a bigger douchebag than the vapid, rich Ben Stiller.

God, that was 15 years ago...

comment #7

T. Holly says ...

You're missing all the funny stuff and sheesh, talk about not understanding a word of anything anyone says, Wells -- you of all people -- with all the Depression 2.0 stuff you've been conjuring up.

Hint, hint:

"Audiences gloried in spectacular fantasies of high society and easy living that they would never know. The zany characters of Screwball comedy could afford to be screwballs, while the average American could not. For an hour or two, though, we can all pretend to be Cary Grant or Katharine Hepburn."

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG03/comedy/historicalcontext.html

comment #8

Aycarumba says ...

Uhh, ain't this gonna be on the WE channel in 8 months? THE BOOK WAS STUPID!!

comment #9

LDKA0186 says ...

Amen, Aycarumba! Wells, why do you care AT ALL about this stupid movie?

comment #10

Aycarumba says ...

Because I am spend a lot of time railing against chick movies. I have an organization...we meet everyday at 5. At a local bar. You too can be a chick flick hater!

comment #11

Movie fan09 says ...

Hollywood romantic comedies are so woefully deficient because they are consistently unable to convey any kind of magic that isn't accompanied by material glamour. Look at My Wife is an Actress, a reasonably good French romantic comedy.

keyword:french comedy
also, the woody allen reference..if this was the allen era of the mid 70s..yea that could work then.
but his movies are mostly out of season now except for the smart people niche. Unless you're a hipster,art house fan or just a woody allen fan, the average ticket buyer isn't going to see it or want to see it.
The only reason his movies attracted an audience at all was the lure that HE was going to be in it and then you had these great stories and characters bouncing off of him. Then post 70's, you didn't have him as much, but you had the brand of woody allen, so it still worked in some cases.
The typical hollywood movie go-er needs some escapism in their lives.
That's the reason we go to the movies.
Whether you're going as a date to fall in love,with your buddies(girl/guy) to root or fall in love with your favorite star, you go to the movies to see and experience something different/new.

If you want a real romantic comedy, you need to go indie or go home.

comment #12

Movie fan09 says ...

If you want a real romantic comedy, you need to go indie or go home.

by this I don't necessarily mean American (because now that's becoming stale-and it's only 2009!), but such is the case when the new genre becomes old and tired. It's so much cheaper and easier to make and sometimes distribute your work, that it's becoming too easy; as long as you follow a certain formula, anything is possible.. There seems to be too little passion left and not enough art.

comment #13

byanyother says ...

I don't know if the money thing is strictly true. I think if you're a model or an actress or very good looking, chances are you'll want to cash in on that and hook up with a rich dude. But honestly, most of the women I know hooked up with or married men who either didn't work and still don't work or were late bloomers. I don't know anyone who married a "rich guy." Women can be more forgiving than you're giving them credit for. And that Friends with Money movie was very spot on until it had to sell out at the end to giving it a happy ending.

comment #14

The Hey says ...

IMHO I feel that in these types of films the characters are made affluent so it is easier for them to put them in whatever situation the writer needs them to be.

Personally I feel that this is a sign of lazy film making. No one was more guilty of this than John Hughes and Chris Columbus.

comment #15

K. Bowen says ...

This is like the argument last year I was having about 21. People were offended that they had taken a real life story about nery Asians and turned it into a story about pretty white people. It was glamorizing the story. Myresponse was always "And .... ?"

I don't have a problem with glamor. I don't want everything I watch to be suffused with realism, or the glamorized pessimism so prevalent nowadays.

comment #16

nemo says ...

This sounds like one of those films in which a "middle class" character has a kitchen larger than an average apartment with a half dozen $300 copper pots hanging on the wall.

comment #17

Michael says ...

I don't know, Reality Bites? Except I always considered the hip, poor Ethan Hawke a bigger douchebag than the vapid, rich Ben Stiller.

I'll thank you to stay out of my head from now on, Josh.