“We are all just one small adjustment away from making our lives work”

When you reach a certain age and pass on feelings such as hope and not having pain in your knees to the next generation you settle into a resigned attitude towards most experiences that have consistently disappointed you to stop the never-ending suffering of resentment, and replace it with the joyful superiority of cynicism. Chief among these experiences is the Hollywood movie genre known as the romantic comedy. As we move into whatever we are calling this decade that presumption that the next boy-meets-girl nonsense will be appalling has managed to evolve into downright hostility. Nowhere has this been more noticeable recently than in the case of James L. Brooks' latest How Do You Know. Early indications suggested poor results, the budget had soared to over $100 million and critics and audiences were ready, as they always seem to be, to punish such excess with scathing reviews and a paltry gross revenue. There was little surprise when the film was released to scathing reviews and audiences staying away in their droves, instead heading next door to spend their hard-earned money on the likes of Yogi Bear, Tron: Legacy and Little Fockers.

When you imagine scathing reviews, however, you imagine something more fierce than those How Do You Know received. Critics instead reserved their utter contempt for the likes of Yogi Bear, Tron: Legacy and Little Fockers. Nevertheless, the romcom, starring such luminaries as Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Jack Nicholson and Owen Wilson, had its fair share of caustic remarks. Philip French described it as, 'interminable', perhaps a dig at the running time which clocks in at an epic two hours. Better still was Peter Bradshaw, who wrote of, 'a fatuous and depressing parade of nothingness.' David Jenkins of Time Out called it, 'Contrived, mawkish and mirthless,' leaving Lou Lumenick to end with this neat summation, 'a rambling, over-produced, tone-deaf melange of romance, comedy and drama.' Many of those adjectives are harsh, of course, as How Do You Know is too bland to provoke such bile. Other critics were stung by Brooks' continuing downhill trajectory from the contrived and mawkish Terms of Endearment, to the Network for Dummies romcom Broadcast News, to As Good as It Gets and that interminable parade of nothingness, Spanglish. Brooks is finely-considered as a writer, director, producer, and rightly, so expectations were higher for How Do You Know, compared to the collective holding-of-breath that preceded Little Fockers.

Reese Witherspoon is a much-loved and very successful professional softball player whose career is coming to an end prematurely due to her turning thirty. Disillusioned and without a future she does what any woman should do in such a circumstance and begins putting herself out there sexually in order to snare a wealthy husband. Immediately two such Lotharios begin sniffing around. First there is Owen Wilson, a professional baseball player enjoying his success, laid-back charm and thick, luscious hair. Clearly entranced by at least one of these, Reese jumps into his bed without so much as a serious conversation only to discover he is something of an insensitive chauvinist, who cares not for her constant whining. Soon after she meets Paul Rudd, who is possibly the protagonist. Paul has his own set of troubles, caused by the financial mismanagement of his father being blamed on him. This causes Paul to lose his job, his fiancée and his luxurious apartment, while also being threatened with having to choose between saving his father from jail or going to jail himself. Why is there the tale of corporate fraud and father-son tensions clumsily forced-in to a romcom about a woman saying goodbye to her youth? Because Brooks got as bored as we did by the romance story and decided to clumsily force-in a whole second movie on a whim.

How Do You Know's flaws are conspicuous and fatal. The story never rises from its disorganized origins, the actors coast without much effort, there is minimal chemistry and the majority of the dialogue is lifted directly from self-help books and the psychiatrist's office, even though only Reese briefly drops in on an analyst to quickly dismiss any need for insight. Despite these glaring faults and an excessive budget the mauling the movie received seems a result of the unnecessarily large cost and indulgent salaries for the stars. That the content fails miserably is something of a happy coincidence. However, How Do You Know does not deserve to be remembered as one of the Hollywood's biggest follies. How should anyone of us know what insipid drivel audiences will flock to out of their devotion to love stories? After all, lazy romantic comedies continually rake in a fortune at the box-office much to critical dismay, so why shouldn’t Brooks have some coming?

On paper, the film sounds promising, so long as the paper isn't a page of the screenplay. When judged by the trailer, Brooks' film plays heavily on star-power, but there lacks a striking concept such as a magical fountain, a male maid of honour or commitment-free sex to draw the viewer in. All these scenarios scream jokes and a happy ending, meaning it matters not whether they are then forthcoming. How Do You Know has loftier ambitions and avoids meet-cutes and gimmicks, yet this should not be interpreted as a sign of greater intelligence. The corporate fraud subplot is borrowed from newspaper headlines and is introduced without any consideration of how it will affect the central premise. The script abandons any pretensions of realism, or even sympathetic characters, in the hopes of entertaining us with our favourite thespians traipsing out their usual shtick in a world of aspirational success, beauty and expensive real estate.

Romances exist as escapist fantasies involving impossibly-attractive people falling in love in an idealised location. Their popularity rests comfortably on a universal, timeless empathy, safe in the knowledge that audiences shall always identify with someone searching and falling in love. We cherish the books, television series and films because they are honest in their intentions and sell us on delusions that love conquers all, attractive people work in offices, there is a soul-mate for everyone and becoming sexually-desirable is only a montage away. How Do You Know offers an alternative insight. Sure, all the characters are wealthy and pretty, and even the most cramped apartments are spacious and handily-located, but life is difficult and painful, problems are never easily-solved and financial corruption is occasionally punished with appropriate retribution. A potential single mother is saved from her fate by the father of her baby proposing marriage, and Reese's forced retirement, career limbo and general confusion about men, life and infirmity is fixed by loving a man with the same inadequacies. Brooks creates a melancholy world of fraught disturbances where there are no easy answers and then climaxes his story by solving everything with an easy answer, and an unseen comeuppance for the film's thankless villain. How Do You Know ends as nothing more than the superficial veneer Brooks invented to convince us there was more to his film than there was.

Such a spectacular failure with critics, audiences and on its own terms as a film, there came an unexpected sense of pallid disappointment from those still capable of being disappointed. The contempt How Do You Know provoked was caused largely by our superior expectations attached to James L. Brooks, but he was let-down by a misguided sense of ambition and an alienation from modern audiences who have never been fully committed to explaining what they want from this strange genre. His was a story of grown-up troubles settled by cheap romcom tricks. Either poor, getting old Reese Witherspoon is single, yet likeable, and suddenly meets the man of her dreams leading to any number of hilarious social embarrassments and grandiose displays of affection, or she is facing the second act of her American life and needs a few big answers to comprehend the meaning of her existence, in which case meeting the man of her dreams just won’t cut it as a solution. Equally, if Paul Rudd is having a bad life, but then through an unlikely circumstance meets the woman of his dreams, but must hide his impending strife for fear of scaring her away leading to hilarious social embarrassments and grandiose displays of affection then we have a strong idea for a romantic comedy, possibly starring Jack Lemmon as Paul Rudd. However, if his impending doom is tied to the actions of his estranged father with whom he has never had a happy relationship and has never escaped from under the shadow of you cannot then introduce a blonde woman and hope that will take care of his predicament. Nice try, Mr. L. Brooks, but somehow we viewers saw through that from just the trailer.

"What I need is someone who's going to be in my bed at 2 a.m. who I don't have to lie to or eat breakfast with"

Mills & Boon Modern Romance attempts to assimilate the old-fashioned joy of falling in love into this contemporary world, offering second-hand joy to readers whose understanding of romance has been warped slightly by living in a world devoid of old-fashioned romance. Mills & Boon are escapist fantasies, offering fairy-tale scenarios through a rose-tinted view of our social landscape with the smooth veneer of nostalgia. Recently, the publishing monolith has aspired for modernity beyond stamping their novels with the word Modern. Spice has upped the sexual quota to a hedonistic-degree that trendy, urban types will immediately recognise. Paranormal hopes to cash in on the ludicrous success of Twilight, The Vampire Diaries and The Next Big Thing because part of the future is sanitising out-dated horror staples. Will these young, go-getters of love check potential dates on Facebook, update the progress of their relationships via Twitter, watch Blu-Rays together and do other things that are all the rage among twenty and thirty-somethings nowadays?

One can only hope to never find out. Of course, there is one romantic phenomenon that those who are out-of-touch, but still running large entertainment conglomerates, are beginning to recognise and that is the always thrilling-to-watch-from-the-outside trend of friends with benefits, or 'physical coupling buddies'. Soon there will be a few television series about it, there have already been films and there will be a few more, and if they haven't already, soon enough Harlequin will catch up, because they have their finger on the pulse of young people's wrists even more solidly than we Bewildered Hearts. What is a friend who offers other benefits besides friendship, however? Should we look it up on the Urban Dictionary so we don't appear uncool? Do the kids still say 'cool'? No, let's get our information from the usually reliable and insightful source of a glossy Hollywood romantic comedy? That's where we learnt so much about Valentine's Day, and Evita.

No Strings Attached tells the story of a serial romantic, Adam, played by Ashton Kutcher's mop of hair, who falls for a hard-working trainee-doctor, Emma (Natalie Portman's remaining integrity), over the course of a series of unlikely coincidences. Adam is troubled due to his ex-girlfriend beginning a relationship with his own father, while Emma is incapable of emotion, brittle and so dedicated to her work she has neither the time nor the interest for loving. The film manages to hint that she is also emotionally-healthy, suitably ambitious and willing to sleep her way to the top of her profession, alienating friends and colleagues all the while, although some of this is only barely hinted at because Adam is supposedly our protagonist, despite the film's incompetent story-telling. While Adam is our lead, the demands of the plot rest on Emma's arc from becoming a girl without a boyfriend to being a girl with a boyfriend. Before she can complete this transition, though, there is the complicated matter of filling out a running time and dick jokes can only go so far.

Emma has the bright idea of sleeping with Adam in a number of different locations, but refuses to become emotionally-involved for reasons that are never adequately explained. Adam, meanwhile, remains exactly the same for the entirety of the movie. No Strings Attached has all the hallmarks of a hip, young-people film, including a twenty-something screenwriter, Natalie Portman as both star and executive producer, the presence of Ashton Kutcher, a veritable who's who of up and coming actors (Olivia Thirlby, Ophelia Lovibond, Greta Gerwig, Kevin Kline), an uninhabited homosexual character, a black friend character played by a rapper, a sixty-four-year-old director and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo appearance by Tim Matheson. Characters have iPhones regardless of their material wealth, make inappropriate jokes about genitalia, fetishise contrived lesbianism and somehow force in references to Glee, all the while relying on romantic comedy clichés such as strained parental ties and siblings getting married to reinforce a desire for a similarly committed bond.

Every effort is made to update No Strings Attached as a modern romcom, but on their first date Adam takes Emma to a miniature golf course and then to an all-night diner where they innocently squabble over a shared milkshake. Once the predictable end to the formula comes the viewer is left to wonder whether the conservative attitudes were intentional. No matter how much the youth attempt to avoid traditional relationships with their ironic emotional distance, casual sex and devotion to their careers deep down everyone craves the same thing, and that is what their parents where unable to achieve, a happy-ever-after and a kiss atop a fountain while an elf plays the violin. We are all slaves to our sex-specific mating interests and even Hollywood's continued delusion towards glorifying individualism and the free-spirited pursuit of dandyism can break us from the conclusion that humans are simple animals who like babies, houses and Ashton Kutcher movies.

Be that as it has been scientifically-proven to be, No Strings Attached remains responsible for its inept fumbling of narrative, characters and comedy. Evolution cannot be blamed for everything. Adam and Emma are smug, instantly-detestable, hard to warm to and face no difficulties in their idealised versions of life. For the film to work with Adam as its hero and the love story told through his mentality, the world of the film would have needed to have been heightened with a satirical play on gender roles. Adam is the feminine male, the romantic, betrayed by broken entanglements yet still relentlessly optimistic. His long-time goals are marriage and family and he is honest in the validity of these dreams. Emma, meanwhile, takes on the masculine form as Adam's emotional counter-point, refusing connection beyond the physical, commitment-phobic and rejecting the social norms that dictate love shall bring stability and happiness.

However, because of the realism of the characters' rooting there is never a satisfactory excuse given for Emma's inability to accept feelings. Her sister and mother are healthy, her father is never mentioned. She is self-assured, funny, smart and grounded. Therefore, Adam, the hero, must work even harder to convince Emma to reject her principles, prove that work and relationships can be combined and also manage to solve the deep-rooted cause of her emotional frigidity, with hilarious results. Still, to shirk on laughs is forgivable if the film's inclination is for conceptual credibility, but with neither you have a romantic comedy that is not romantic, comedic or believable.

The other option, and clearly the one the filmmakers decided to follow two-thirds into their picture, is to make Emma the heroine having to re-evaluate her ambitions when a friend with benefits turns into what a friend with benefits is, someone you like who you have sex with. Consistently throughout the film supporting characters and strangers walking their dog in the middle of the night tell Adam that such a scenario is unworkable in the long-term, but this is surely no revelation as the system is designed to be transitory and functional. Inevitably, thanks to the central conceit being short-sighted and misunderstood by the writer, there is no drama to the concept, no mystery and no insight. This leaves us with nothing more than a pathetic attempt to repackage When Harry Met Sally... without the wit, iconic scenes, depth or Billy Crystal. Critics have argued the film is feminist, as did the director, but if this were the case Emma would have been the protagonist and all the obstacles the central romance faced would not have stemmed from her independence masquerading as psychological problems which are then cured by a penis.

As the story actually goes, Adam meets the girl of his dreams only to discover girls are weird! However, because of his manhood and sturdy torso she stops being weird and starts crying and speaking sentimentally. With Emma as the film's centre there would be greater nuance and a more compelling protagonist. We also might have had what the writer originally intended, less of a generic, broad romantic comedy, and more of an insular exploration of the troubles facing modern women trying to juggle the professional with the personal, with evolutionary conditioning drilling maternal instincts into their pretty, little brains. Does such a sexual agreement between colleagues afford the ideal situation for determined career types, and furthermore is that an interesting scenario for a feature film? We shall have to wait and see, for No Strings Attached sets out to do all kinds of things and ends up only doing one, being a terrible feature film, two hours of Ashton Kutcher attempting to convey bafflement with his lips.

Would a Mills & Boon author aspire to tell the tale of two friends who start having sex only to continue to have sex? Presumably we can discount this as a classically-structured romance for a number of obvious reasons. Still, we have reviewed books on this very site where friends become lovers, eventually, after endlessly discussing whether increased intimacy might destroy the bonds of friendship. The stakes are never high enough and the journey is no challenge. The casual attitudes of the characters towards sex, fidelity and commitment mean that the mighty struggle to come to terms with what they risk lacks significance. No Strings Attached would have worked much more strongly had Emma lost Adam at the finale, with her coming to a realisation about priorities against a more credible backdrop of responsibilities and incitement. Of course, had that been so the film would not have been considered a romance and therefore Bewildered Heart would have been saved from having to watch it.

"I can feel my sperm dying inside of me, one at a time"

If Samson Raphaelson was the finest romance and comedy writer of yesteryear, his modern day equivalents are the screenwriting pair Hollywood turns to when they need a flimsy excuse to attach unlikeable people for distasteful flirting. These writers are Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont and together they have penned the likes of A Very Brady Sequel, Can't Hardly Wait, Josie and the Pussycats, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas and Surviving Christmas.

More recently they have settled into a nice rut. In 2008 they co-wrote the script for an anaemic, detestable farce entitled Made of Honor, about a man who is literally made out of honour. Patrick Dempsey is another of those Hollywood hunks who coast on their looks and make me embarrassed about my physical appearance. Dempsey's cheekbones play Tom Bailey. Tom invented the piece of card jerks put around their coffee cups to stop from burning their fingers, for they are too busy to actually enjoy coffee and must combine it with walking into buildings hurriedly. Did Tom Bailey create card? No, but through some Hollywood logic he is now a multi-millionaire playboy with no financial worries. He uses his limitless free time to sleep with young women and has a series of rules to avoid emotional connection and happiness. Somehow, the film says, the audience is supposed to over-look his crippling dickishness and believe it worthwhile to watch him find love with the woman he is in love with.

But wait, for this lady, the only person who can put up with him, has to go to Scotland for work, and it is there she meets a hunky, red-headed Scotsman with a large penis and accepts his proposal of marriage. The only option open to Tom is to become her maid of honour and use this intimacy to break off the engagement and make her his own. He grows more charming by the minute.

Two years later, Elfont & Kaplan returned to our screens with Leap Year. This one concerns a young lady, played by the chin of Amy Adams, who wants to marry her emotionally-stunted doctor boyfriend. When he fails to propose she decides to surprise him at a conference in Dublin and propose to him on February 29^th. Leap Year Day being an Irish tradition, a time when women are allowed to propose to men and anarchy is tolerated. Journey plans go awry, naturally, and Amy Adams winds up in quirky, rural Ireland, with a grumpy, but devilishly handsome, Irish chap who has a beard. Needing money, he offers to drive her to Dublin, and pretty soon an entirely unconvincing romance is afoot.

For those keeping count, someone needs to stop Kaplan and Elfont before they reach Wales. However, according to reports, their next film will be Repeat After Me, a story about a woman forced to relive her nightmarish wedding day, presumably until she gets it right and dumps her English fiancé and instead marries his deadbeat Best Man, played by Josh Duhamel, or someone irritating like that. Before that, however, they are also adapting Marie Winn's Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama into a film, hopefully casting Kristen Bell and Hugh Jackman as the Central Park hawks. Fingers crossed!

As we can see, these two have a neat system operating, requiring little work besides name and location changing. Their films take place around weddings, often used a ticking clock device to force a man into realising he is ready for a relationship. Another curious trope involves infidelity, the husband-to-be screwed over in the name of true love between shallow people who deserve each other. Raphaelson might have made this work, but it is doubtful Raphaelson would have bothered with Hollywood were he working today. Kaplan and Elfont shouldn't be blamed entirely for the soulless despair their films represent. There are directors and producers at work here who rarely receive a fair proportion of the blame. It cannot be a coincidence that the pair's better films are the ones they directed, even though both of those films remain lousy.

Women love weddings as much as men hate the idea of marriage. Why Kaplan and Elfont are allowed to propagate dismissive stereotypes and gender clichés is best summed up by their startling financial success. Made of Honor was so successful a sequel followed, Made of Honor 2: We Didn't Think This Through and Leap Year proved so beloved, despite all the criticism, that other calendar irregularities shall soon be turned into films. Thankfully, none of that is true, except for the most depressing part, which is kinda true.

As this post has done, critics of the Kaplan-Elfont brand of romantic comedy never travel far beyond reciting the pair's credits, lazily trading on the obvious as much as the screenwriters have. While it is safe to say that their filmography shamefully speaks for itself, it is not enough for us, those who demand better, to feel satisfied in knowing we have the right to hate them. We want to know why we must hate them and why we continue to watch their films. There must be a reason as to why studios churn this claptrap out with heartbreaking monotony. Bad films are forced upon the public all the time and that is why we invented Renée Zellweger, Oscar-Winner. However, there was a time when inbetween the likes of When in Rome, The Ugly Truth and Bride Wars there were great films and decades on, when nostalgic, or angry, people looked back on said decade those garbage films were easily ignored and the great films were all that remained. We don't have the luxury of future hindsight, but at least we can rest assured knowing we have all the garbage films which will be forgotten done. That's taken care of.

Leap Year was a rotten and cheap excuse for a film, a clumsy, arbitrary list of clichés including, but not limited to, the couple who pretend to hate one another even though they like one another, the two people forced to pretend to be a real couple in order to get a room at a local inn (The Bounty Hunter somehow managed to fit this one in as well), an after dinner kissing competition contriving the fake couple's first kiss where they find out they kiss real good, the American's reliance on technology versus the indigenous country folk, a road blocked with farm animals - possibly sheep, it is not important – and ugly foreign stereotypes. And the guy kills a chicken.

Kaplan and Elfont shouldn't be blamed for a lack of effort when they're rewarded whether they try or not, and seeing as how their script is likely to be trashed by the producers this by-the-numbers approach avoids the inevitable disappointment that comes from seeing the finished product. It seems suitable to believe they wrote Leap Year and Made of Honor over the course of the same weekend, sometimes forgetting which one they were working on and then realising it didn't much matter. Then we should all hope they were paid a great deal of money, and some of that fortune went to charity.

“All Hearts Know about Love, All You Have to Do is Listen”

Following up on the recent ruminations concerning romantic comedy movies, here's an unwarranted essay entitled, That Was Stupid, and Other Thoughts on Carolina. Bewildered Heart watches a great number of Julia Stiles films. This isn't a particularly surprising statement, as we watch a great number of films starring a great variety of people. Be that as it may, if Julia Stiles ever reads this blog, and why shouldn't she, this blog read hers, then she shouldn't be disconcerted. Although, we would be pretty upset if she wasn't in some way flattered. After all, we have seen most of her films, and most recently there was the viewing pleasure of a 2003 effort named Carolina, where Stiles played the titular role, alongside Shirley MacLaine as that Shirley MacLaine character she now plays in everything. We have seen a lot of her films too. In this gentle and under-whelming romantic comedy the audience is treated to what we most look for in a movie, squandered potential.

In Carolina, there's a fairly messy back-story to contend with, unfortunately, and that confusion has not been aided by a lack of attention brought about by tedious story-telling. Despite that, here goes. Carolina and her half-sisters live with their eccentric, matriarchal grandmother. They have extended family gatherings, where comedic character actors turn out to eat, drink and say quirky things. Carolina has tired of this activity and to pay for her independence works on a dating game show, matching up lonely, angry people and then filming the hilarious despair of romantic failure. Her best friend and neighbour is a dream-boat writer, named Arthur, who authors sensationalist romance fiction under the pseudonym Daphne St. Claire. He is in love with Carolina and she is in love with him. However, thanks to a stern refusal of happiness, Carolina dates an English gentleman and watches this relationship fall apart, as all the others have, due to her non-existent character flaws. On a side note, there actually is a Mills & Boon writer named Daphne Clair, whose bibliography includes The Timber Baron's Virgin Bride. What a coincidence! Isn't that almost interesting?

After some quite unbelievable events this blog entry is determined not to ruin for you, dear reader, and a few deeply contrived scenarios which ruin themselves, the film ends as happily as a story can when it concerns some people you cannot possibly bring yourselves to care about. Carolina was written by Katherine Fugate, who a year later would further erode the credibility of Julia Stiles with The Prince and Me and manage to boost the box-office appeal of numerous actors who never had any credibility to begin with, with Valentine's Day. Fugate also created a show entitled Army Wives and how depressing is it to only find out about that show now? Oh, Army Wives, where have you been all our lives?

Sadly Fugate never follows through on the satirical element briefly alluded to early in the film. She begins with plenty to work with and a subject worthy and suitable of exploration, thanks to the supposedly knowledgeable arenas Arthur and Carolina work in. Love is tricky, and dating game shows and fantasy romance fiction are outside our understanding of the day-to-day. They're mindless, inoffensive trash and wish to be seen that way. They're escapist entertainment for people easily entertained. In the big existential crisis that is life such things cloud our judgment, unrealistically alter our perceptions and leave us facing a future where new TV shows don't hold a candle to cultural landmarks such as Jersey Shore. This stuff makes people worse, under a most pessimistic scrutiny. At best, they don't help.

What helps, the film helpfully points out, is having the perfect man live next door to you and love you always and no matter how selfish and crazy you are. Carolina ends up not saying or doing anything, foolishly wasting any tangible notion of humanity and hoping the audience will be satisfied in seeing the lead character find love. Really, romantic comedy? That's all you have for us? Nothing. Films like this are a dime a dozen. A supposed female rites-of-passage flick that skips the rite-of-passage and settles for a solution that isn't what the film was set-up to be about, that in the end female empowerment is nothing compared to a sensitive man. If, during the opening credits, the viewer is able to announce that they have sat through Where The Heart Is, According to Greta and Post-Grad does that mean they don't have to watch anymore exact replicas of this meaningless garbage? Please note, Bewildered Heart has seen the majority of Alexis Bledel films because we love her. She certainly shouldn't ever read this.

Still, they are fascinating films in their simplicity. The emotionally heavy-weight issues of realising your true-self, loving your family no matter how inoffensively idiosyncratic they are and winning a competition, or giving birth, used as a ticking clock device, are all ideas rich for possibilities, and ruined when the writer doesn't properly deal with them. They all cope with the lovably weird family one, but that isn't a challenge. You're supposed to love your family, you spoiled dolt. No, in these films the epiphany never feels monumental enough to warrant cinematic treatment. Carolina has at its brittle heart a convoluted story with too many characters and not nearly enough heart. When Shirley criticizes a Daphne St. Claire book as having, 'Too much talking, not enough loving,' it's a valid point toward her own movie and the genre as a whole. Unless by loving she means sexing, because then her supporting characters are right to take issue with her one-track-mind. You're old! Eww. Stop it, Grandma.

Sam Wasson mentioned that rarely do we, as an audience, watch, with credulity, as a couple fall in love on screen. Yet, what is love and isn't everyone's interpretation of falling bound to be different? As James L. Brooks has finally asked, How do you know? even going so far as to make a film around the entire subject. Good on you, L. Brooks. We've seen a lot of your films. In the end, as the saying goes, when you know you know, and that's the critical stamp of approval few films receive. We just don't know.

"The Whites of Your Eyes are Clear, Your Corneas are Excellent"

The New York Times posted an email exchange between Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maureen Dowd and Sam Wasson, the author of Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M., a book concerning the making of Breakfast of Tiffany's, a classic film of consumerism and casual racism that teaches a valuable lesson. The more beautiful you are the easier your life will be. Which is just true, so you really can't criticise the film for noticing how society is unfair. In their conversation they discuss the nature of modern Romance Comedies, the Hollywood film genre, while wallowing in nostalgia, not to mention managing to offend Jennifer Aniston and Katherine Heigl (Not Katherine Heigl! But she's so awful!). Meanwhile, Wasson offers a neat description of every film you will have seen recently. 'I can’t remember the last time I saw two people really falling in love in a movie,' he writes. 'Now all we get is the meet cute, a montage, a kiss, then acoustic song into fade out. Nothing experiential, only movies manufactured from movies.'

Ignoring the suggestion that acoustic songs are part of the problem, and that actors such as Aniston, Jennifer Garner and Heigl have any power or choice over the films they make, Dowd and Wasson's impression of modern romantic comedies is flawed in the simplest sense. Even now when watching a Howard Hawks film, a teary-eyed old codger who nobody invited (Seriously, who is he here with?) will say, 'They don't make 'em like that anymore!' and everyone will agree. He is right, of course, and probably lonely, yet once you've ushered him off with some change and an empty promise you'll call the realisation will hit that of course they don't make them like that anymore. It's an illogical statement. It's about as illogical as comparing Two for the Road with The Bounty Hunter. Now, Bewildered Heart watched The Bounty Hunter, for the sake of this blog (the things the internet goes through for you), and we noticed, during one of the car chases, that it really isn't a romantic comedy, lacking both a convincing, sweet-natured love story and anything approaching humour. It works along similar lines to a Mills & Boon, despite its own probable protestations. An abandoned relationship is rekindled over the course of a series of unlikely circumstances, as a couple hate one another at first, but then slowly realise this is as good as it is going to get for them. Happy Ending! Pop music! Credits!

The girl, portrayed casually by Jennifer Aniston's face, is a journalist, while the male, played by Gerard Butler's shirt, is a charming chauvinist. Furthermore, as with all Mills & Boon books, no one of discerning taste could possibly enjoy the experience. In terms of true romantic comedy nothing modern stands out as impressive, or worth watching, even when they do follow the trusted formula Wasson was criticising moments ago. Even the films he glorifies, those of Hawks and Lubitsch, begin with a meet cute and end with a kiss. So what's the difference between now and the Golden Age? If Wasson knows he ain't telling. He blames a lazy attitude toward assembly line film-making, with no attention paid to the craft of showing a couple genuinely falling in love onscreen. Gone has the charm, gone has the patter, gone has the wit. The question isn't that romantic comedies aren't good anymore. They aren't. Films aren't as good as they once were. Nothing is. The whole world is rubbish. Therefore, the question is, what happened? The most likely bet appears to be regression.

Yet, would audiences flock to see Trouble in Paradise or Bringing Up Baby if they were made today? Who knows? We have nothing in whatever decade this is that has the glorious old-fashioned feeling to demonstrate the public hunger for quality. Isn't the greatest love story ever committed to celluloid City Lights? Yes, it is and anyone who disagrees obviously has never seen it. We might blame capitalism, but Hollywood has always been profit-orientated. Wasson refutes the old adage that, 'teenage boys and girls drive the marketplace. But I say they only drive the marketplace because there’s nothing out there for grown-ups to see.' It is wonderful for older, more intelligent people to wash their hands of modern times, but it is a poor argument, simply because it absolves the statement from requiring proof.

Once you've seen every film made prior to the advent of colour is there any reason going on? Is the lack of romance and comedy in this new age of romantic comedies indicative of wider social troubles? Surely not! Tell us you're only joking, Sam Wasson. 'I am not joking when I say that because there is nothing to see my girlfriend and I have had to stay home and in some cases fight. If there were better movies out there, I am sure so many relationship disasters may have been averted. Also, romantic comedies, the good ones, taught me how to love, or at least instructed me on how to try. If I were falling in love now for the first time and going to see this garbage thinking this was real, I would be in deep (shit).' Perhaps, but anyone basing their business plan on corporate thrillers would be in more trouble, and anyone planning to renovate a summer camp and get laid this summer would be best served watching a couple of movies about that stuff first.

Inevitably, this is a matter of causality. Life imitates art, on occasion, but art is clearly based on life. Films reflect the times we live in, and the stale, bland, manufactured state of romantic comedies is not the cause of our societal troubles, and it is not the reason we fight. What Wasson means, we can assume, is that Hollywood pictures set the tone for our lives. If there is romance in the movies, then there will be romance in the world. Sure, there lacks a basic comprehension of romance nowadays, but those lightweight, fluffy ninety-minute escapist romps that made the world such a wonderful, peaceful place in the 1930s and 40s are behind us. Today we have soulless corporations churning out examples of how a stupid man can win the orifices of a stupid women, with the whole idiotic disaster sold only with a promise of Jessica Alba's, Biel's, Josh Duhamel's briefly glimpsed bare flesh. In conclusion it is all very sad, and, as Wasson notes with disappointment, there will be no backlash until the current formula fails financially, or a new, lucrative market in decency opens up. Neither looks set on happening presently, and so we silently despair, as good people are supposed to do.