No More Hollywood "Love"

One of the pleasant prerogatives of the feverish is cuddling up under the covers and watching television all day. (It is recommended to moan occasionally to maintain surrounding sympathies.) 

I energetically channel-surfed, and as there were no Law & Orders available, I made do with a decade-old rom-com. It was so predictable I couldn't bear to finish it. 

Let's see, there is the free spirit, daughter of a high-powered magnate and she has only been a disappointment to him. She doesn't "do" relationships. The guy that she met and made a fool of herself in front of is now—surprise!—her business associate. They get stuck together for some weekend project, where they "bond" over alcohol. 

It was at this point I flicked on a lame cooking show. Let me guess: She rises to the occasion and makes her father proud. She decides there is merit to a long-term relationship, after the guy she fools around with turns out to be a jerk. She has feelings for the business associate, her opposite in every way. 

Probably somebody chased something (taxi, plane, train) in the last two minutes of the film. 

New Yorkers, of course, care so much about romance that they don't mind holding back traffic. Snort.

I thought I was alone in my disgust and rejection of the dying rom-com, but apparently I am simply reflecting the feelings of a worldwide audience; movie-goers are sick of the rom-com, as "To Revive a Genre, Zombies and Snow" by Brooks Barnes reports. 

“People are not tired of romantic comedies,” Mr. Radcliffe said in a telephone interview. “They are tired of manipulative, cheap and sappy films filled with big romantic gestures that never happen in real life, ever.”

Movie houses are now operating by a different method: let indie-filmmakers concoct more honest, less formulaic offerings for a laughingly small budget, see how the audiences take to it, then acquire it for relatively nothing (in mega-movie house terms).

"Fill the Void" was later acquired by Sony Pictures. The original movie budget was mostly eaten up by the clothing.

When I was younger, I thought relationships were simple; I gobbled up the rom-com with gleeful naivete. No more. Now, I want my movie romances to bear closer resemblances to reality, not teenage fantasies.