Big Fat Romantic Comedy

My sister's latest poll is "What are the defining features of a romantic comedy?" A young man she works with said something like "...and there are these guys who do shit no guy would ever ever do" Any feedback would be appreciated and would be forwarded to sister A.

I must now rant about a recent romantic comedy.

It's called Elvis Has Left the Building. I was told it was "by the person who did My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Now I thought that movie had some genuinely funny parts (the Bundt cake scene was great), although I didn't really see the huge attraction of the movie. It didn't speak to me on that many levels I guess. Just a cute quirky romantic comedy that didn't assume the audience is full of lobotomized romantically stunted fuckwads. So I looked up Elvis after watching it. Indeed, the director of Elvis Has Left the Building is Joel Zwick. His past credits include My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Fat Albert (2004), The Love Boat: The Next Wave (TV series), and Full House (TV series). You can definitely tell. So it seems that Greek Wedding's humor was most likely entirely a credit for the writer and occured despite the director.

Here's the synopsis of Elvis Has Left from IMDb.com:
Kim Basinger plays Harmony, a cosmetic saleslady who was born at an Elvis concert and finds her life linked to the legend. One day while driving, she accidentally kills some Elvis impersonators and flees the scene. She goes on the run from the FBI and joins up with a depressed cosmetics advertising executive.
(italics mine)

My least favorite part of the movie:
John Corbett's character (Miles), who is smitten with/stalking Kim Basinger's character (Harmony) has a stroke of romantic genius that allows him to come up with the perfect sales pitch for his advertising company's lipstick account and a deeply romantic moment with Harmony simultaneously. You are not sure which came first at that point, which does nothing to enhance the growing sense that the romance underlying the film is a bit shallow. Were it otherwise, I should be able to surmise it was the love that inspired the act, not the fucking lipstick. This is supposed to be about love, not about ads or the appearance of love. I mean, even in the genre of dorky romantic comedy, this moment could have been grounds for a conflict that, through it's layered (and even comic) resolution, would show how much Miles really truly loves Harmony even though they've only had two very short conversations and he's sort of creepily stalking her across the southwest.

When Miles comes upon our heroine changing her tire by the side of the road and singing "Always on My Mind" to herself, you know it's coming. It's just a matter of refraining from hitting the Stop button. He walks up singing along, greets her, explains he is NOT an elvis impersonator, and holds out the tube of lipstick that Harmony left in his car (she used it to draw a heart on his passenger side window forever ago in the movie. Guessing Miles' face is shot such that it's framed in the heart in a later scene? Good call). Miles then takes Harmony's hand and draws a heart on her open palm with the lipstick.
Oooooh.

You could feel the sell. The next scene was Miles on the phone to his ad flunky (back in some city, details like this are irrelevant to the writers) played by Sean Astin (eww) who is telling Miles that the heart on the hand is the most romantic thing he's ever seen. See how romantic the hand thing was? See? See? It was romantic! Even ad playboy Sean Astin (imagine) thinks it's romantic. You sense it may even have changed his life, leading him to abandon his wretchedly shallow and unromantic player ways.

I gotta say, I would have shoved that lipstick up Miles' ASS if I were Harmony. Not right away. I am a genuinely and deeply romantic person, after all. But when I found out that this cute ad exec guy who went so far out of his way to sweep me off my feet/stalk me took our perfectly romantic moment and used it as a national ad campaign, then indeed the guy would have been sporting a lipstick suppository.

Not only did this scene imply that the characters were vapid idiots who can't distinguish between sincere expressions of deep emotion and trumped up showy bullshit, it also implies that the writers and/or director think the audience is similarly impaired. The latter offends me more. Believe it or not, I am a charitable movie viewer. I think I might be a touch naive too. I figure sometime even the best intended stuff just doesn't work. Sometimes disbelief isn't that suspendable. Or I occasionally imagine scenes might get changed to suit the preferences of some no talent studio executive with a commercial agenda. The poor writer, I think, poor director. Bad talentless movie executive chomping his cigar and wrecking people's dreams!

I had no sympathy for the writers or director here. Their apparent assumptions about their audience left me feeling dirty and fucked with. I felt like the makers of this film assumed that my summer reading list includes any overpriced glossy with articles like "How to get your man to do what you think he thinks you want in bed without being bossy and unfeminine". Like they believed that I find TV and print advertising to be entertaining and fully intellectually engaging dramatic forms.
"Oh my god did you see this deodorant ad?" I'd ask my friend as we lay near the pool in Michigan.
"The one with the guy with the shirt?"
"Yes! and he's walking but he's bright and the background is dark and there's the grey horse standing there and the guy's got a red rose and Miami vice stubble?"
"Totally, and she's like sitting on the wooden fence dangling a half drunken bottle of champagne between her knees? That was amazing!"
"The fence part was ok, but my favorite part is the Guess Ad background, storm clouds and cliffs and a big shining road coming out of the tunnel...."
"Oh yeah, I thought the beer truck was a nice touch. I know, you just don't see the old Guess ad style anymore..."
"Sure don't. Hey pass me the SPF 1/2 sun oil, I'm drying out"
(sizzle sizzle sizzle)

I could sense the movie reaching out and probing around for the ad-femme mental receptor we women are supposed to have (men are supposed to have these also....for some it responds to Jock Jams style, for some it's better targettedwith a load of refined yet masculine post baby boomer scotch sipping Dennis Quaid bullshit). It slapped me in the face, smeared its greasy hand down my front (reassuring itself that I did in fact have boobs, small yes, but present) and then floppped around in confusion when there was no ad programmed button to push.

My favorite part of the movie:
I was watching as Miles views the spots his flunky (Astin) has created for the lipstick. It's meant to be over the top sexy nudity, too masculine. Miles' displeasure with these ads is not because they suck or are aimed at the wrong market. It's because he's a romantic man.
For a moment, I was engrosed in the movie and I said
"That's just stupid. Besides, guys don't usually buy women lipstick"
My friend A said after a rather lengthy pause "What do they buy?"
"Uh...." I hesitated not sure what typical men buy for typical women but pretty sure for some reason that it was not lipstick.
I was about to say "perfume?" when my friend said "Oh, I totally misparsed what you said. I was thinking 'What, is there MAN lipstick? Do they sell it at CVS?'"
I sat there silently for a second or 20 thinking about this.
Then my friend said "I honestly thought women lipstick was a kind of lipstick for a minute there"