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What is it about the American romantic comedy that makes the
audience believe
that there is something wrong with the notion of love without
whimsy? That there
is something wrong with the sanctity of marriage? Not that
I'm the Number One
proponent of a necessity of logic when it comes to relationships,
but doesn't
this seem to be the pattern that exists in almost every plot
of this genre?
Think about it: Career woman is engaged or has a serious relationship
with a guy
who is equally as successful. Then, some magical force that
is passed off as
FATE or INEVITABILITY intervenes and she meets some new guy
who just seems
so...different. Maybe there is some tension and/or friction
at the very
beginning of this new relationship but it is always gets in
the way of
everything like her career, family, relationship, etc. It
normally goes three
ways: (1) the first guy, you know the successful one who has
established a solid
and stable relationship with the woman? He does something
asinine to turn the
woman off and into the arms of the other guy. (2) The new,
wacky guy pursues a
woman until she gives in. (Although in real life, she would
merely seek a
restraining order.) (3) The woman gets some wild hair up her
ass to give up the
success and the stable relationship to go along with wacky
and whimsical Guy
Number 2. This latter category is the most preposterous in
many ways and it is
the category that Sweet Home Alabama, the new Reese Witherspoon
sell-out comedy,
falls under. Don't believe me? It is not as if it is anything
you have not heard
before.
Sweet Home Alabama tells the story of Melanie Carmichael
(Reese Witherspoon), a
Southern girl who has made it big in the fashion world of
New York City. She has
also made it big with Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), the prominent
son of the mayor.
(Candice Bergen in full Hillary Rodham Clinton mode including
the ambitious pant
suits). Andrew proposes marriage but there is one hitch: Melanie
is still
married to Jake (Josh Lucas). So she has to go back to her
home town of
Greenville, Alabama to get him to sign the papers. However,
as Hollywood likes
to do, it portrays this small town as a third-world country
where everyone just
happens to suffer from a terminal case of quirky politeness.
And Melanie,
despite living there for almost twenty years, acts as though
it is a foreign
world when she arrives. But oh boy! How can she turn down
the charm of knowing
everyone's name or how can she turn down Jake? Why, he was
her first love and
they did spend the beginning of the movie watching lightning
turn sand into
glass. It must be destiny. But faster than one can say Hee-Haw,
that
Hillary-esque knows something is up and tries to employ her
evil Yankee attitude
in ruining the whole thing. Will she be unsuccessful in her
attempts? Will Meg
Ryan have a different haircut in her new film?
There are enough points to baffle me about Sweet Home Alabama
that would equate
the NRA stickers in the parking lot of a Ted Nugent concert.
Thus is the case
of every movie in the romantic comedy genre. For instance,
why does Melanie act
as though Greenville is a place she's never been before except
that she
recognizes a couple of faces? I mean, I can understand being
apprehensive and
all but this is really a ploy to make that character more
cartoonish than she
needs to be. I think the audience would have accepted her
as more guarded, but
then that would not have been as easy for the script to mine
for laughs. And
she's so quick to leave once she gets there, but then she
make a royal boob out
of herself at a local honky-tonk bar and that infuses enough
guilt into the
character that causes an entire about-face so she can reconcile?
Perhaps if
there had been more conflict at the beginning, then that might
of helped.
And-SPOLIER ALERT-she realizes that she still loves Jake.
(But if this spoils
the movie for you, you're probably too stupid to drive your
car to the multiplex
to see this.) But what was wrong with Andrew? Other than having
a total shrew
caricature of a mother, he is painted as the perfect guy.
Great career, good
looks, covers Melanie's apartment with flowers-the package
is all but complete.
Jake is the guy that knocked her up in high school and has
a personality that
totally clashes with Melanie's nature. IT IS FATE, the movie
always answers.
Heaven knows that a successful career woman should feel kind
of guilty for
having higher aspirations. In the film, it a matter of the
plot's mechanics
slowly creaking along to the point where the cogs almost falter.
For the
audience watching the film, it is a way to say that fate will
take care of
anything. There is no need for self-accountability. I suppose
that is why this
formula keeps getting cranked out and people keep buying tickets
to see it.
It is not as if the film does not hit its targets every now
and then. I really
liked the scene where Melanie has to look for her father (Fred
Ward) in a field
full of pretend-dead Civil War soldiers in a reenactment.
Or the scene where
Melanie and Jake actually have a frank conversation about
how their relationship
ended. All of that feels like an accident since the rest of
the film just mails
the results in. Why not when the ending is an inevitable conclusion?
It is too
bad because it wastes the talent of Witherspoon and Lucas,
who was so much more
convincing in his similar role in You Can Count on Me. But
that movie doesn't
fit the mold of this type of film. The virtues of the romantic
comedy are not to
be successful, not to appreciate and value the stable relationship,
and not to
worry about consequences of present actions on the future.
No the virtue in this
day in age is to squander all of that due to one "magical"
moment in the past. A
more interesting plot would be whether Melanie has to give
up her career or
whether Jake moves with her to the Big City. But it's hard
to cheer the possible
shortfalls of that. So if easy love and denial is your deal,
grab a bag of
popcorn and check out Sweet Home Alabama. Just don't expect
to respect yourself
in the morning.
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