Love Triangles Are For Squares
And just to follow up on Bellamies... not every romantic comedy has to be structured around love triangle involving a "wrong guy" or "wrong gal"! Think about:
The 40 Year-Old Virgin - A grown-up hero who's never been in a relationship before? Plenty o' conflict there. No need for a Ms. Wrong... our protagonist's choice isn't "her, or her?" it's "ready or not?".
Jerry Maguire - Again, the problem lies with the hero himself. Imagine if Jerry had left his wife and her kid and run into the arms of another woman, instead of throwing himself at his one remaining client. Show me the bo-ring.
Annie Hall - Who needs a Bellamy when our two leads are wrong enough to carry the whole story? Seriously... what would "Mr. Wrong" look like in this neurotic world? (Bill Pullman, allergies 'n' all, would be the smoothest guy on the block in Annie Hall.)
Don't make your script a triangle if it wants to be... well, two dots with a line between 'em.
The 40 Year-Old Virgin - A grown-up hero who's never been in a relationship before? Plenty o' conflict there. No need for a Ms. Wrong... our protagonist's choice isn't "her, or her?" it's "ready or not?".
Jerry Maguire - Again, the problem lies with the hero himself. Imagine if Jerry had left his wife and her kid and run into the arms of another woman, instead of throwing himself at his one remaining client. Show me the bo-ring.
Annie Hall - Who needs a Bellamy when our two leads are wrong enough to carry the whole story? Seriously... what would "Mr. Wrong" look like in this neurotic world? (Bill Pullman, allergies 'n' all, would be the smoothest guy on the block in Annie Hall.)
Don't make your script a triangle if it wants to be... well, two dots with a line between 'em.
posted by Jennica at 9:40 a.m.
4 Comments:
The good thing about Jerry Maguire too is that early on it seems like Kelly Preston is going to be the Bellamy, and one of the script's great ideas is to jettison her early.
The structure of Jerry Maguire is actually that he learns a lot of apparent lessons early -- the first half hour is almost like the last half-hour of another movie, complete with his essentially choosing Renee Zellweger over Kelly Preston -- but then the story spins on to a whole new host of problems created by the lessons that he has learned and the choices he has made.
Scott, I should've just hired you to write a guest post!
Jerry Maguire is a pretty fascinating example. The wedding's in the first act? That's a great lesson in thinking outside the box.
Oneslackmartian also commented, but it seems to have disappeared! Not sure what's going on there, but... missed you, Slack!
And in case I haven't been clear enough: anyone & everyone interested in the rom-com, or simply good structure, should seek out Billy Mernit's "Writing the Romantic Comedy".
Billy : Bellamy as William Gibson : cyberspace.
Another problem with the Bellamy is that the hero doesn't really need to learn anything about themselves or the world in order to ditch said bitchy person.
When Harry Met Sally seems a good example of turning this convention on it's head -- remember the scene where they each meet each other's new squeeze over charades? Baby fish mouth, anyone?
And I wonder about Bridget Jones Diary -- despite Natasha's coldness and snobby friends, I was still able to feel sorry for her, and see how her and Mark might have ended up together. Perhaps it's a matter of showing flaws equally all around?
Excuse my many punctuation foibles!
Lord have mercy!
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