How do you know you’re watching a good romantic comedy?
It avoids the standard moments – the chase in the airport to stop someone from getting on the plane, the disapproving sister who watches over the female lead, the guys’ horny best friends who just want him to have some fun and “forget her” – and focuses on charming leads work out how they feel about each other.
It also helps if like How Do You Know if it comes from a master like James L. Brooks. The writer/director of Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment, As Good As It Gets and even the unappreciated Spanglish has delivered again.
Professional softball player Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) and corporate businessman George (Paul Rudd) are each at a crossroads. Lisa’s now perceived as past her prime and is cut from Team USA. Paul’s business is being investigated for securities fraud, and it’s looking like he’s going to take the fall. Each are looking for something to get them through, they meet on a blind date – and then don’t become a couple.
Lisa would rather not think too much, so she takes up with a self-centered playboy major league baseball player, played by Owen Wilson. She’s spent her life trying to be better than the boys and following inspirational credos to motivate her into being a better person. Now, she thinks maybe she just needs to be one of “those girls.” George meanwhile gets dumped by his girlfriend who can’t be there for him, yet he still remains an endearing optimist. Lisa’s inspirational credos are what he needs to hear to get him through. He can’t stop thinking about her.
It all plays out wonderfully with crisp quotable dialogue coming from each of the major characters. It will be worth at least a second viewing to get the lines down – they’re the kind of lines you really like when you hear them, but there are just too many to remember once it’s over (me, I like “I don’t drink to get better, I drink to get even better”).
Brooks gets great performances out of his actors, who don’t just deliver great lines – they deliver great facials. Witherspoon is stunning, and there are long close-ups of her face – which reveal what she’s thinking even when she’s not saying it. There is a shot of her in the bathroom that has to be the among the best tooth brushing moment ever on film. Rudd is just as strong. He’s best known for playing very funny parts in films about “man-children”, where he’s maybe the closest one to an adult there but still has that immature side (the brother-in-law in Knocked Up, the uptight groom in I Love You, Man). He’s a full-fledged grown-up here despite some daddy issues.
And what a daddy. The movie didn’t need it, but Brooks brings out an ace-in-the-hole to make the movie even better: his old As Good As It Gets/Terms of Endearment friend Jack Nicholson as George’s father. He’s a presence whenever he’s on the screen and is clearly an influence on why George is the way he is. It’s an older, more restrained Jack, but still a good performance.
Then there’s Owen Wilson’s lothario, the funniest character in the movie. He sees nothing wrong with how he lives his life -- he thinks he’s doing women a favor by having extra toothbrushes and clothes on-hand in his apartment, not thinking that he’s rubbing it in that he sleeps around. And he’s always asking for validation – “good talk, right?” comes up after each of his shallow relationship discussions.
Those other romantic comedies would have made Wilson a cheater and would have Lisa be unaware of his faults until she catches him. He’d be so sleazy that the audience waits for him to get his comeuppance and have Lisa dump water on his lap.
But everyone involved here is much smarter and more complex than that. And that’s how you know you’re watching a good romantic comedy.