Last night, I saw a sneak peek of the new
Gerard Butler RomCom
Playing For Keeps. It was chick porn. Not actual sex, but the same adolescent wish fulfillment that guys experience when watching porn. There is no difference between "He's a hot, bad boy, but he will settle down as soon as he meets the right woman" and "This hot girl will totally fuck me to avoid paying ten bucks for a pizza." {I delivered pizza for five years and this never happens. The closest I got was an almost attractive chick and an ugly chick made out in front of me while some dude tried to pass that off as a tip. Fuck you, dude, that won't pay my student loans.}
Gerard Butler plays the hot bad boy and
Jessica Biel plays the girl who's only personality trait is that she's a mom. At one point in the movie, Gerard Butler leaves the kid with a maid so he can go fuck another woman to further his career, so of course he's a keeper. But Jessica Biel lives with a guy for three years even though she still LOVES Gerard Butler and has no visible means of support, so she's, at best, someone who settles on second best for convenience. At worst, she's a golddigger.
It wasn't all shit. Like all romantic comedies, there's some great supporting characters including an underutilized
Randy Quaid, an underutilized
Uma Thurman and
IqBal Theba who made the best joke in the movie.
In my critique of this movie to my friends, I made the comment "I could poop out a Romantic Comedy in two weeks.'" {Yeah, I said poop. I'm pretty surprised I didn't say shit.} Of Course, that's not true, because I have a full time job. But if I didn't have to work, I could knock one out in in half that. RomComs have so many conventions, that most screenwriting software requires that you just input the names and it will auto-write you one. Anyway, here is a plot synopsis for a romcom that I threw together while jogging and washing dishes.
Merilee {A unique name lets you give a "personality" while keeping her generic enough for the audience to identify with} is a single mother {Single mother is important, because its a cheap form of conflict. Will the guy want to date a women with a kid? Oh no, the tension is killing me} that is the office manager of a small medical practice. The main doctor is a cranky old man and her best friend is a sassy {possibly fat, maybe
Rebel Wilson if we go in this direction. Or gay, if we go gay, I want to cast my Twitter Homie
Brad because he's basically doing this character in real life} nurse. Cranky Old Doctor {henceforth referred to as COD} is in the process of retiring and turning the process to a new young doctor from India. On Drug Rep day, {the day that drug companies send attractive people with fancy lunches to "inform" doctors how wonderful their new medication is and the doctors should prescribe this medication to everyone, whether they need it or not} Samantha, the once hot drug rep is introducing the new hot drug rep, Ryan, to the staff. Merilee is smitten and Ryan asks her out. They go to the
Trail of Lights {which is an awesome place to take a date and I have yet to see anyone do this in a movie}.
At the trail, Ryan and Merilee runs into an old ex-lover and she and Ryan fight it out and Merilee learns Ryan is a cad {by the way, I'm taking this word back}. She storms off and runs into Rajan, the young Indian doctor. He comforts her with some hot cider {mega-fucking-yum!}. They chat. He tries to explain cricket to her {which is comedy in itself, that game doesn't make any sense! My
exhibit A}He invites her to come watch him and some friends play down at the park. Merilee agrees to go and brings Sassy Nurse {SN} to the game. PS. SN probably made some hilariously racist jokes earlier. It's hot out {hey, its Texas, I've spent more Christmases in shorts than in long pants} and the cricketeers take off their shirts, disproving the theory that Indians are all nerds. SN will probably make some sexist remarks after seeing all those hard bodies.
And then I hit a wall. Because people who go to RomComs don't really like foreigners. They can't do change well. They want the same predictable story about the bad boy who settles down with the audience surrogate and a canned speech about "living your life" or "seizing the day" delivered by comic relief.
So this is my compromise. Same Marilee, COD, SN, and Samantha. A less-jerky Ryan is introduced to Merilee. He asks her out. Marilee's kid gets sick and Merilee calls Ryan to cancel. "Oh no," says Ryan, "I really want to see you. I will just come over there."
The way to a woman's heart in RomComs is to play stupid games with their kid, so Ryan plays Pokemon {He knows how because he played growing up. He's a hot nerd!} with Tempest {or whatever shitty name Merilee gives that kid. The kid in Playing For Keeps was named Lewis like it was the 1950's or some shit.}
They fall in love! And try to keep the relationship a secret because its a conflict of interest. But Samantha finds out. She's past her prime attractively and therefore useless as a drug rep. But drug companies can't actually fire her because that would be admitting that drug reps only exist to seduce doctors into proscribing their drugs. So drug companies generally keep giving the oldies shittier and shittier routes until the oldies quit. Samantha leverages herself into Ryan's lucrative route.
All looks bleak until COD gives Merilee a pep talk. Merilee then seizes the day and lives her life. And they catch Samantha sleeping with another doctor. Samantha quits in shame and Ryan gets an even better route and Merilee becomes a stay at home mom.
