The following begins with an aborted attempt at comparing The King’s Speech to a conventional Romantic Comedy. Watching The Adjustment Bureau today, it occurred to me that it isn’t just the Romantic Comedy subgenre that has this same basic throughline; really it’s a fairly basic story structure since as long as humans have had stories. But anyway, before expanding that idea, here’s the aborted King’s Speech blog entry:
I’ve complained before about the generic throughline of The King’s Speech. But, I want to spell it out a little more clearly. The King’s Speech, despite its British pedigree, despite its highbrow historic subject matter, is structured like a fairly basic romantic comedy. Allmovie.com’s description for the subgenre describes it simply: “a subgenre of comedy that focuses on the complications arising from the search for romance, courtship or a new relationship.” The King’s Speech fits that last one, if you go for a literal interpretation. But, going less literally, the structure fits; AllMovie continues: “couples usually started off disliking one another, only to slowly overcome such obstacles and fall in love y the upbeat conclusion.” When Bertie first meets with Lionel, he doesn’t care for the man’s familiarity, for the man’s methodology, for the man really.
Backing up, even before Bertie meets Lionel, the film has—in modern critical parlance (which I don’t care for)—a meet cute when Elizabeth comes incognito to Lionel…
I’d hate to steal from Wikipedia (especially since this entry has no sources [note, after the fact, this Wikipedia bit is actually quoting but not citing filmbug.com]), but this description of the basic plot is a good one:
The basic plot of a romantic comedy is that two protagonists, usually a man and a woman, meet, part ways due to an argument or other obstacle, then ultimately reunite. Sometimes the two protagonists meet and become involved initially, then must confront challenges to their union. Sometimes the two protagonists are hesitant to become romantically involved because they believe that they do not like each other, because one of them already has a partner, or because of social pressures. However, the screenwriters leave clues that suggest that the characters are, in fact, attracted to each other and that they would be a good love match. The protagonists often separate or seek time apart to sort out their feelings or deal with the external obstacles to their being together.
Bertie and Lionel actually have a few small arguments—the dispute right up front when Bertie doesn’t trust Lionel’s methods in recording him reading from Hamlet, Bertie accusing Lionel of treason and ridiculing his failed acting career—before the big one, when Lionel’s qualifications are questioned by the archbishop. That’s the big breakup before the end, the big obstacle keeping Bertie and Lionel from being together.
It was at this point in my blog attempt that I realized I really wasn’t very familiar with the more conventional romantic comedies of recent years, the kind that star, say, Sandra Bullock. I was trying to think of those big breakup moments that always come just before the couple realizes they belong together and maybe there’s a grand gesture or maybe there’s mutual epiphanies and they run into each other’s arms (not always literally, of course)… and I couldn’t think of any really obvious ones. Here’s what I had, in no particular order:
It’s Lisa discovering who Akeem really is in Coming to America.
It’s Anna thinking Will betrayed her location to the press in Notting Hill.
It’s Jack’s inability to tell Lucy not to marry his brother in While You Were Sleeping.
It’s Diane choosing her father over Lloyd in Say Anything.
It’s Linda answering the door and calling herself Robbie’s fiancé in The Wedding Singer.
And numerous other (probably better) examples. I realize in recent years I haven’t bothered with any of the more conventional romantic comedies, so…
After a little more brainstorming, I thought of So I Married an Axe Murderer, but I couldn’t decide if that big obstacle was Charlie’s suspicion of Harriet, or her sister turning up at the hotel, or… well, my whole attempt to boil down the structure of a generic romantic comedy was stalled. Obviously, there’s the two people who are total opposites but deep down are just perfect for each other. There’s some story going on as they get to know one another and outside forces (jobs, family members, or though it’s not a comedy, the titular bureau of The Adjustment Bureau, or conversely the Devil in Two of a Kind, or mortality in Love & Other Drugs) get in the way, building up to that huge obstacle/breakup that sets up the final act. And, then you get the grand gesture, say Lloyd holding that radio over his head, Josie getting on that pitcher’s mound in Never Been Kissed… Patrick singing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” in 10 Things I Hate About You is a little early in the film, structurally, to qualify, but that’s a good grand gesture kinda thing.
But, anyway. The throughline is pretty basic. Simplify it even more: instead of two people trying to be together, it’s one person or a group of people just trying to do… something. Outside forces get in the way—that is the essence of drama, right? The stuff getting in the way reach a peak, say the destruction of Hometree in Avatar, or, for another James Cameron reference, the ship starting to sink in Titanic. With your basic three act structure of most any film, especially out of Hollywood, inevitably any one of them can be compared to a romantic comedy then. I don’t have to simply pick on The King’s Speech just because I’m still bitter over it winning the Oscar for best Picture over several better films.
The Adjustment Bureau, by the way, is a tragic casualty of Hollywood rescheduling. It’s a great film, touching on some of the same themes as Inception—supposedly, it was delayed from last summer/fall to not be released so close to Nolan’s Best Picture nominee (one of those that was better than The King’s Speech, in my opinion)—free will being a big one of those themes. Of course, The Adjustment Bureau has a different take on it, and doesn’t have us following a bunch of thieves out to potentially ruin a man’s life for a good chunk of money… seriously, the film never actually suggests that Fischer (the son) is capable of making his own way without his father’s business empire. But, somehow it plays like a great idea, the film pulling a good game of suggestion on us almost as well as the characters do on him. There’s a lot of shorthand, universal relationship stuff, father and son, or husband and wife (with Mal and Cobb), without really giving us reason to care about what happens to Fischer in that vault at his father’s deathbed, or what happens to him after all this dreaming is done for that matter. Keep in mind, he’s not our protagonist. Cobb is. Cobb, a guy who make s aliving stealing people’s ideas, and who is essentially as responsible for his wife’s death as his wife wanted him to look (only not for reasons that might necessarily hold up in court), and we root for him, because Hollywood shorthand puts us on his side right from the opening scene. We want to identify with someone up there on the screen, and whoever they give us first, he’ll do.
For the record, I think Inception is a great movie. I even think The King’s Speech is a great movie. But, picking these things apart—this is fun. And, anyway, I was talking about The Adjustment Bureau. It’s take on freewill is more in line with man versus god (or, specifically the “Chairman” of the Adjustment Bureau) in what destiny is. We’re given a likeable enough guy, David Norris, running for Senate (and destined for higher office?) and we get the “meet cute” (that term is kinda growing on me the more I am forced to use it, so I must never again use it) with Elise hiding in a men’s room stall when he comes in to practice a speech (spoilerish but only in a minor way as this is early in the film), his concession speech after having lost this election. This one meeting is supposed to be all they’ve got, enough to inspire him to change his style for the speech, to go off script and come off as the frontrunner for the next senate run and maybe even the presidency after that. But, chance steps in—it’s almost like a Greek drama, chance versus fate, free will or the illusion of it caught in the middle. Outside forces just like any romantic comedy (or drama) get in the way, an ex fiancé, adjustment bureau knowledge making David hesitant to move forward with the relationship, a car crash, and a promise of dreams quashed. The point to my rant against Inception above was that arguably this film should have actually gotten a more positive audience response, since it’s a love story at the heart, not a bunch of thieves taking down an heir to a corporate empire (not that taking him down isn’t a good thing). And, the science fiction is downplayed here. It’s almost omnipresent, but it’s often subtle, such a given for the premise that it’s never really huge. The visual effects are numerous, though often playing on the same element; if you’ve seen the trailer you’d know about the doors opening to places they shouldn’t, and there are a lot of these doors in the movie, a fairly simple visual effect but done expertly and often.
There’s a coup small breakup moments leading up to the big breakup and then (HEREAFTER THERE BE SPOILERS) David has his grand gesture moment when he lets Elise in on what’s going on and makes a run through the bureau’s doors across (if you can apply such a simple preposition to the directionless travel these doors imply) New York, eventually getting into the Bureau building itself, heading for a meeting with the Chairman. Where Inception has its cleverness, dreams within dreams that got a bit too complicated for some viewers, The Adjustment Bureau takes on a bigger idea, effectively debating the existence of and/or the role of god in our individual lives, but plays it straightforward enough that its hardly confusing. It steps past attempts at cleverness and goes right to intelligence, if you can understand the distinction.
Is unfortunate that The Adjustment Bureau got delayed into the doldrums of the movie year. It deserves more attention, and a larger audience, than it is bound now to get… even if it does have a fairly basic structure.
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