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How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days in a Nutshell
Takes place in: An alternate universe where the Knicks make the NBA finals
Rips off: The Taming of the Shrew
Unique spin: both shrew and tamer suck
Rom-com stalwarts: Wacky best friends, asshole bosses, SCK
Members of central couple involved in journalism or advertising: Both
High points: None
Low points: Constant harping on gender stereotypes; inexplicable karaoke duel
Point of contemplation: Simple, country family homestead situated on Staten Island
10-word summary: Unlikable story about two allegedly charming jag-offs.
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I stated earlier that most romantic comedies borrow liberally from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. There are some exceptions, including one of the films I viewed, Serendipity. In the tradition of Noam Chomsky, Lolita and her husband have further distilled all rom-coms down to four universal components:
- The couple meets
- Something bad happens
- Something good happens
- There's a really big kiss
Fade to black. That's all there is to it.
Onto this basic structure, we can weld certain well-worn trends. For example, the “something bad” of universal rule #2 is most often a fight between the man and woman in the central couple and the “something good” is almost always their reconciliation. That was certainly the case in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Kate and Leopold, and You've Got Mail. And what better way to show true reconciliation than with a big, sloppy kiss? In particular, there is what I call the Swirly Camera Kiss (SCK) where, perhaps due to a lack of conviction or chemistry on the part of the two leads, the camera whirls around the embracing couple, or pans up to the sky to express the powerful emotions lacking in the scene. All the movies I watched ended with a big kiss; at least four of them were swirly.
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