i'm not proud of myself. trust me, i'm not.
So.
I saw The Proposal.
(Before continuing to read this review, I would suggest familiarizing yourself with my past encounters with Ryan Reynolds. It's complicated.)
I really wanted to like The Proposal, just like I really want to like every crappy romantic comedy I end up watching. I'm an eternal champion of this constant failure of a genre, because the formula is so easy I'm always astounded how the film makers keep screwing it up. It's just so simple. All you need is a heroine who's flawed enough to be relatable but perfect enough to be a gorgeous Hollywood actress and therefore pretty to look at. Then you need a hero, who likes her for who she really is. The situations you throw the two in, that's all important too, because it's where the 'comedy' part comes in, but those two elements are what romcom's are all about. Simple as that. Two things. Two damn things.
One of my favourite movie critics neatly summed up the worst failure of the movie, the subject of my feminist ire and why men shouldn't pen romantic comedies directed to women, if they get it this wrong: We meet workaholic New York editrix Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) as she exercises, eats right, negotiates a tough deal before breakfast with a difficult writer and discreetly fires a lazy, pretentious chump who's bad for her company after giving him several chances to succeed.
In other words, if she were a male executive in a movie, this would be held up as exemplary behavior. But because it's Sandra Bullock, all her co-workers (and we the audience) are asked to think of her as a "bitch."
In-fucking-deed. How dare she be a capable woman with career ambitions and not cuddle incompetent employees with motherly warmth or whatever the fuck.
Because, as far as bitchy female executives go, Margaret is really not that bad. She's truly not. She might be a little on the cold side, but she's not unreasonable, she's not unnecessarily mean and she doesn't seem to take pleasure in sadist - when she fires an employee early on in the movie, she doesn't humiliate him, she's very professional about it.
So the fact that she's good at her job is painted as a grave character flaw of some sort, the kind that she's supposed to overcome with the help of Ryan Reynolds' character, except not really, because the script isn't tight enough to actually reach such heights. Instead they opt for dumb gags here and there, including some absolutely pointless bits where he makes her feel uncomfortable by groping her ass (even though he doesn't like her or anything, but hey, she had it coming, what with being good at her job and everything! ha ha ha, ain't sexual harrassment a laugh?).
I'm being unfairly harsh, perhaps, but as I said, I really wanted to like this movie. Because it's not difficult to make a good romcom, and the premise had some promise.
Another reason why Margaret really isn't deserving of the cruel "the witch is coming" jokes from her staff (Ryan Reynolds' character Andrew included!) is because early on in the film, we find out she has no immediate family, they're all dead. So if she's learned to be independent up to the point of not even having friends, can you blame her? It's just so clear that this supposedly icy lady has a very fragile inside. So why does she get treated so badly?
It's not so much the character I have a problem with; it's her treatment in the movie that pisses me off. And then there's the romance.
Like I said, it's so damn simple: the guy just has to like the girl for who she is. The problem here is, Andrew has worked with this lady for over 3 years. He tells her he knows everything about her, but she doesn't know anything about him. So basically, he already knows her well. And yet he hates her. Where to go from here, movie?
Instead of sharing a bit of himself with her, what happens are a bunch of silly gags that place her in vapid humiliating situations. She does learn about him, but through other sources, by being in his hometown, by talking to his family. In one of the few genuinely sweet moments in the movie, she shares more of herself to him, tiny little facts about her youth. He never reciprocates.
But for a guy who supposedly knows everything about this lady and still hates her with every fibre of his being, you never really get to see what makes him change his mind. Simply the few shows of vulnerability she has in the movie? She lost her whole family at some point, is it so surprising she has emotions and is actually quite lonely? If he knew so much about her, how come he hadn't figured as much out? Too busy calling her a witch on IM to his co-workers, I suppose.
The script simply doesn't work. It doesn't bring the comedy and it barely brings the romance. And so I'm once again stuck here, trying to figure out ways for Hollywood to make actually decent romcom's. Perhaps step one is not to have guys write your romantic comedies with their stereotypical ideas of what women must be into. Step two, just focus on the characters and the romance between them - everything else will come together if that works. Because it's really simple and it's not rocket science. It's ironic the film featured this old school hiphop song called It Takes Two, because it's true, it only takes romance and comedy. So why is the comedy never funny, and the romance never romantic?
Sigh.
I saw The Proposal.
(Before continuing to read this review, I would suggest familiarizing yourself with my past encounters with Ryan Reynolds. It's complicated.)
I really wanted to like The Proposal, just like I really want to like every crappy romantic comedy I end up watching. I'm an eternal champion of this constant failure of a genre, because the formula is so easy I'm always astounded how the film makers keep screwing it up. It's just so simple. All you need is a heroine who's flawed enough to be relatable but perfect enough to be a gorgeous Hollywood actress and therefore pretty to look at. Then you need a hero, who likes her for who she really is. The situations you throw the two in, that's all important too, because it's where the 'comedy' part comes in, but those two elements are what romcom's are all about. Simple as that. Two things. Two damn things.
One of my favourite movie critics neatly summed up the worst failure of the movie, the subject of my feminist ire and why men shouldn't pen romantic comedies directed to women, if they get it this wrong: We meet workaholic New York editrix Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) as she exercises, eats right, negotiates a tough deal before breakfast with a difficult writer and discreetly fires a lazy, pretentious chump who's bad for her company after giving him several chances to succeed.
In other words, if she were a male executive in a movie, this would be held up as exemplary behavior. But because it's Sandra Bullock, all her co-workers (and we the audience) are asked to think of her as a "bitch."
In-fucking-deed. How dare she be a capable woman with career ambitions and not cuddle incompetent employees with motherly warmth or whatever the fuck.
Because, as far as bitchy female executives go, Margaret is really not that bad. She's truly not. She might be a little on the cold side, but she's not unreasonable, she's not unnecessarily mean and she doesn't seem to take pleasure in sadist - when she fires an employee early on in the movie, she doesn't humiliate him, she's very professional about it.
So the fact that she's good at her job is painted as a grave character flaw of some sort, the kind that she's supposed to overcome with the help of Ryan Reynolds' character, except not really, because the script isn't tight enough to actually reach such heights. Instead they opt for dumb gags here and there, including some absolutely pointless bits where he makes her feel uncomfortable by groping her ass (even though he doesn't like her or anything, but hey, she had it coming, what with being good at her job and everything! ha ha ha, ain't sexual harrassment a laugh?).
I'm being unfairly harsh, perhaps, but as I said, I really wanted to like this movie. Because it's not difficult to make a good romcom, and the premise had some promise.
Another reason why Margaret really isn't deserving of the cruel "the witch is coming" jokes from her staff (Ryan Reynolds' character Andrew included!) is because early on in the film, we find out she has no immediate family, they're all dead. So if she's learned to be independent up to the point of not even having friends, can you blame her? It's just so clear that this supposedly icy lady has a very fragile inside. So why does she get treated so badly?
It's not so much the character I have a problem with; it's her treatment in the movie that pisses me off. And then there's the romance.
Like I said, it's so damn simple: the guy just has to like the girl for who she is. The problem here is, Andrew has worked with this lady for over 3 years. He tells her he knows everything about her, but she doesn't know anything about him. So basically, he already knows her well. And yet he hates her. Where to go from here, movie?
Instead of sharing a bit of himself with her, what happens are a bunch of silly gags that place her in vapid humiliating situations. She does learn about him, but through other sources, by being in his hometown, by talking to his family. In one of the few genuinely sweet moments in the movie, she shares more of herself to him, tiny little facts about her youth. He never reciprocates.
But for a guy who supposedly knows everything about this lady and still hates her with every fibre of his being, you never really get to see what makes him change his mind. Simply the few shows of vulnerability she has in the movie? She lost her whole family at some point, is it so surprising she has emotions and is actually quite lonely? If he knew so much about her, how come he hadn't figured as much out? Too busy calling her a witch on IM to his co-workers, I suppose.
The script simply doesn't work. It doesn't bring the comedy and it barely brings the romance. And so I'm once again stuck here, trying to figure out ways for Hollywood to make actually decent romcom's. Perhaps step one is not to have guys write your romantic comedies with their stereotypical ideas of what women must be into. Step two, just focus on the characters and the romance between them - everything else will come together if that works. Because it's really simple and it's not rocket science. It's ironic the film featured this old school hiphop song called It Takes Two, because it's true, it only takes romance and comedy. So why is the comedy never funny, and the romance never romantic?
Sigh.