10 Most Over-Used Romantic Comedy Plot-Points

10 Most Over-Used Romantic Comedy Plot-Points

This list describes 98% of the romantic comedies released by all major studios in the last twenty years.

         

The modern 'rom-com', as we know it, is dead and has been for some time. The vultures are circling its carcass and the flies are digging into its festering flesh. The only people that don't realise it are the folks in charge of commissioning movies. Judd Apatow realised it and essentially refashioned the entire genre as best he could whilst still playing with the weary old 'rom-com' conventions with his first two directorial efforts, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. What has killed the modern mainstream romantic comedy is the fact that Hollywood won't step away from the template it has bizarrely forced itself to adhere to. Therefore every studio 'rom-com' follows exactly the same beats with just different locations and different looking cast-members. So much so that what follows is the ten stale set-in-stone conventions of the romantic comedy genre that if we follow point-by-point will, by this article's end, have literally described 98% of the romantic comedies released by all major studios in the last twenty years.

10. The 'Meet Cute'.

 Boy meets Girl. Rather contrived plot occurrence forces said characters to instantly hate each other for thoroughly unrealistic reasons. ... He's an alpha-male meat-eater. She's a sensitive vegan. She's an independent and ambitious career woman. He's a care-free and unemployed lay-about. ... He likes dogs. She likes cats. You get the picture, right? The idea that "opposites attract" or that it is perfectly okay in everyday society for people to have different tastes must NEVER enter the equation.

9. The 'Development'

 Contrived plot occurrence develops in thoroughly immature and underdeveloped fashion to put said Boy and said Girl in almost constant contact with each other so €˜differences€™ of opinion, lifestyle etc. can rub off on one another. In everyday life, our general line of thought is that if we don't like someone we do our best to avoid them where possible. In 'Rom-Com Land' our "differing personalities" must end up in constant rotation of each other so cue improbable reasoning for them to move in together, be employed alongside each other, go on a road-trip together and the like.

8. The 'Judy Greer'

Boy and Girl will have respective best friends, standing off in the background, making comedic asides about this thoroughly ridiculous situation between the two of them. This is commonly played by Judy Greer (and, of recent, Tyler Labine) in MOST romantic comedies but is also known as the €˜Sarah Silverman/Adam Goldberg factor€™ and, by law, requires one or both of these characters to be played by a second-stringer from a hit sitcom who is a favourite with TV audiences/a stand-up comic on the rise/someone from The Daily Show AND for said character to signal the start of Act II with a variation of the line €œOh my God, you€™re totally falling for him/her/it!€

7. The 'Ooh. Look, it's HIM / HER from years ago!'

Singular plot contrivances are not enough so subplot contrivances will be added in the form of casting some character actor from decades ago, who used to be quite well acclaimed early in his career, in some €œmentor€ role for either Boy or Girl character. Think Alan Alda/Elliott Gould/Donald Sutherland etc. They'll be on screen for the same amount of time that translates to no more then a day or two in front of the camera. They'll look utterly bored and lifeless but occasionally offer some line-reading that plays as an almost wink to the more cinematically-versed audience member that says "You should check out my stuff from the 70s. I was soooooo good then!"

6. The 'Padding Out'

Boy and Girl will invariably fall in love with one another but deny it for the longest possible time because a movie studio€™s lack of respect for a cinema going audience does not extend to charging them full ticket price for what would only amount to a ten minute fucking movie! ... This is your 'montage moment'! If you're a REALLY bad romantic comedy but you've got enough money in the budget to license more then one pop or R&B song then you'll have more than one "falling in love" montage to pad out your running time. And you'll have your montages in quick succession of each other too. However, it has got to be explained with crayoned diagrams and finger-puppets to all screenwriters and directors of modern romantic comedies that, just because you're covering a period of time with your romantic montages, this does not also equal characterisation.

5. The 'Non-Fixably Fixable Miscommunication'

An absolutely contrived, clunky plot complication will arise at the exact moment that said Boy and Girl are about to connect that will force them apart and thus push the film€™s running time safely into the area of €œfeature motion picture€ and away from the under sixty minute mark labelled €œTV pilot€. Said complication could be easily quashed with something as simple as reasonable communication but this is never the case. I repeat, NEVER! There's always the horrible cliche of Character A having Character B walk in on them at an inopportune moment, misunderstand what is going on and walk out. They always say something stupid or, most commonly, let Character B run away distressed whilst they sigh / shake their head / place their hand on their hip whilst doing the first two. This (without fail) symbolises the end of Act II. Actually stopping Character B and just sensibly explaining the misperception or miscommunication CANNOT be allowed to happen. It's like the 'crossing-the-streams' / 'pushing the red button' of romantic comedies - If they do that then this is a two act sixty-minute movie. No. No. No. If you allowed sense and immediate logical solution(s) to come into play then you would be stopped from having...

4. The 'Exit'

 Either Boy or Girl will decide they have to leave whatever location the whole movie€™s events are occurring within, whether it be by plane, train, boat or automobile. ... But not space ship, as this could be construed as €œoriginal€ and this genre tries to avoid such a trait. The "betrayal" they have "suffered" as a result of the aforementioned misinterpretation / miscommunication is so HUGE that they must give up their jobs, their homes and their friends and family in order to completely evacuate the city or the country and start again.

3. The 'Chase'

 Whichever character is NOT leaving will find out that the other is and will be required to make an obligatory mad dash to whatever location they are leaving from, in order to stop them. The zanier the mode of transport they can acquire to do this, the "better" the moviemakers feel their romantic comedy will be. Why simply drive to your required location when you can be taken there by a stereotypical ethnic minority in a taxi? Why take a train when you can comically hang off the back of a horse or motorbike being driven crazily by a minor character from the first two acts who's popped back to 'save the day'? Why walk with a sense of purpose when you can run and fall over fellow pedestrians or humorously ill-placed everyday objects?

2. The 'Grand Statement'

 The €œchaser€ will catch up with the €œchased€ and make a grand verbal declaration of love that has been written by a spotty faced script doctor who has never met a woman let alone been intimate with one, but who dreams of saying exactly this sort of €˜shit€™ to a female of the species (who isn€™t inflatable) one day! Let's take a quick look at the "iconic" final speech by Hugh Grant in Four Weddings & a Funeral: "... Ehm, look. Sorry, sorry. I just, ehm, well, this is a very stupid question and... , particularly in view of our recent shopping excursion, but I just wondered, by any chance, ehm, eh, I mean obviously not because I guess I've only slept with 9 people, but-but I-I just wondered... ehh. I really feel, ehh, in short, to recap it slightly in a clearer version, eh, the words of David Cassidy in fact, eh, while he was still with the Partridge family, eh, "I think I love you," and eh, I-I just wondered by any chance you wouldn't like to... Eh... Eh... No, no, no of course not... I'm an idiot, he's not... Excellent, excellent, fantastic, eh, I was gonna say lovely to see you, sorry to disturb... Better get on..." Now - who thinks that would actually work in real life? It may work to secure you an appointment with a speech therapist but, come the fuck on, no woman is going to wait around to see how that speech ends! Yet stand a guy in the rain mumbling that with music swelling and you've got yourself a 'moment'! Go figure!

1. The 'Pull Out Ending'

Whatever ridiculous plot contrivance that occurred to cause this whole inconceivable miscommunication will be INSTANTLY forgotten. Long, lingering kisses will be dispensed with as the camera pulls out and some inane pop, romance ballad plays out over the end credits. Throw those ten things together and you've got yourself 27 Dresses € or Made of Honour € or The Accidental Husband € or What Happens in Vegas € or Picture Perfect€ or Zack and Miri Make a Porno € or Ghosts of Girlfriends Past € or The Proposal € or The Ugly Truth € or The Rebound € or Leap Year € or When in Rome € or The Back-up Plan € or Letters to Juliet € or Going the Distance € or The Switch € or Life as We Know It € or No Strings Attached € or Just Go With It € or Something Borrowed € or Friends With Benefits € or What's Your Number... € or I have to go and lie down now! My head hurts!