Romantic Comedies of 2009: A Rebirth in Honesty

In previous years, cinema was jam packed with cliched stereotypes of modern relationships. They always characterized men as "A" and/or women as "B." It was always black and white, with the blame of a failed relationship resting on one or the other's shoulders—never both, which is often the case for most relationships.

But this year we saw something different, a rebirth in "date-cinema" if you will. This year we had movies like Away We Go, Julie and Julia, and (500) Days of Summer. In these films we see couples go through hard times, find themselves, fight, make-up and grow in different ways.

In Away We Go we track a madly-in-love couple on their search to find a home for themselves and their new baby. This is probably the most optimistic-without-being-overly-sentimental take on a couple I have ever seen. Why in the past has it been a bad thing to show a couple that is completely falling apart in every area of their lives except for their love? Sure, they have financial problems, they don’t really have direction in their lives, but they know they have each other and to them, that’s all that matters. Perhaps that’s why the film was not more widely praised. People like to see couples that fight—they like for someone to do something wrong or screw-up. But that has since become tired. Perhaps what would be more interesting is a couple, madly in love in a cynical world.

Julie & Julia we see two couples that strain as the women in the relationships try to achieve their own personal goals. Here's where the film gets original: both of the men in the relationship are 100% supportive. They love their wives and want the best for them. It's when faced with challenges—either self-inflicted or from an outside source—that we see a struggle. You never for an instance doubt that these couples love each other. It is assumed that these men will support their wives, these are good guys. The real question is how much will the women allow their men to support them? What happens when these women become consumed by their work? It’s refreshing to see men displayed in a positive light—as many times and stereotypically, they are seen to be threatened by their mates’ success and ambition.

The oddball of the three—and my favorite is (500) Days of Summer. A story told about a 500-day relationship between a guy and a girl told out of order, this flick is original and refreshing. What happens when you have a hopeless romantic fall in love with someone who doesn't believe in love? Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a Lloyd-Dobler-esque guy who is trying to figure himself out as he finds himself falling for a girl, a girl who he thinks is the "girl of his dreams.” The little film has a lot to say about fate, coincidence, reality vs. expectations and how we often idealize certain parts of our relationships, or certain aspects of our partners. It is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets Say Anything. The thing I loved the most about this film is that both characters are young, funny, flawed and irresistibly lovable. Both do their fair share of damage, even though the film is told from the male perspective. They are real and hilarious, which in turn makes them touching and heartfelt. They are the opposite of the one-dimensional male/female archetypes that are found in so many romantic comedies of the past.

Perhaps what we need today is to stop looking at who is right and who is wrong in relationships. We love to blame and we love to generalize. "Men are so blah blah blah.” "Women are so blah blah blah.” Instead, how about this: we are all out of our minds. Every single one of us is just as nutty and ridiculous as the other. We all screw things up at one point or another. It's when we find the person that we want to spend the rest of our lives with that things begin to make sense. That we REALLY begin to mature. Because it’s then and only then that we are able to put someone else’s needs in front of our own. We need more movies that show us these things. We need movies showing a relationship being destroyed by (and from) both sides. And we really need movies showing couples that love each other without reason and without condition. Because, let's face it, in this world, if two people can find a way to love each other like that, there may still be a little hope for the rest of us.