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Whatever happened to the romcom?

Back in the days of Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant romcoms like Adam’s Rib and His Girl Friday were dingdong battles of the sexes with witty one-liners whizzing around so fast you had to keep on your toes to keep up with them, while the women gave as good as they got and almost whisked the guys’ pants off in order to show who wore the trousers. Nowadays we get the likes of The Proposal, which isn’t bad as far as modern romcoms go, but is limp and emasculated compared to its forebears.

Here’s a short synopsis of the plot of any modern day romcom: she’s a bitch, preferably a hard working, high achieving bitch who has never had time for babies or men; he’s either a sexist slob or a bloke in real life she’d never even consider as a mate. They meet, they bicker a bit, there are some lame sex jokes probably involving nudity, inappropriate clothing or a sex toy, then he realises underneath her ball-breaking exterior beats the heart of a little lady who just wants to be lurved, while she (because she’s not getting any younger and her biological clock is ticking) lowers her sights and decides he’ll do as well as anyone else as a sperm donor.

Most of these movies star Katherine Heigl (watch out for The Ugly Truth coming your way soon) but The Proposal stars the once feisty and fabulous Sandra Bullock, now consigned to wearing inappropriately high heels and acting with her little finger as (you guessed it) the high powered, ball-breaking Canadian book editor Margaret, who is about to be thrown out of the States because her visa has expired. Enter her mousy assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) who agrees to marry her so she can stay in the country.

So, it’s off to Alaska so Margaret can meet her prospective in-laws, which is when she discovers (shock, horror!) Andrew isn’t the nobody she’s always thought, but actually the son of a mega-rich clan who live in a castle on an island. Cue misunderstandings, shared bedrooms but no nookie, yes, that inappropriate nude scene, and the sudden realisation that they’ve actually fancied the pants off each other all this time but never realised it.

There are one or two laughs and some nice supporting work from Mary Steenburgen as Andrew’s mum, but the movie runs out of steam halfway through, while Reynolds has all the emotional flexibility of a handsome man who has got by all his life on a winning smile.

So, it’s mildly amusing and entertaining, but it should have been so much sharper, quicker and more biting. It’s about time Hollywood woke up to the realisation successful, intelligent women don’t have to be bitches and can actually possess a sense of humour but, like women finally managing to break through that glass ceiling, don’t expect it to happen any time soon.

Dee Pilgrim

This small French charmer is full of silences, pauses and scenes where nothing much happens at all, but it oozes a comforting Gallic ease, like the shrug of a shoulder, a cloud of Gauloise smoke and the chink of shot glasses.

The main storyline centres on a widower (Alex Descas) who lives with his daughter in a block of flats where one neighbour has secretly been in love with him for years, while the young man in the penthouse spends his inheritance aimlessly travelling the globe.

The characters drink endless cups of coffee and rum, eat their steamed rice in companionable silence, or simply watch the trains go by. Although their lives are unremarkable what director Claire Denis has managed to do is to capture perfectly a slice of French life in all its banal detail.

Were aliens to watch this film it would tell them more about a certain section of French society than they would ever be able to glean from shots of the Eiffel Tower, the Moulin Rouge or the Pompidou centre, and the fact you leave the cinema liking these people so much is tribute to the movie’s big heart.

Dee Pilgrim

Poor old Pippa (Robin Wright Penn) is having something of a mid-life crisis. Once a loving daughter (played by Blake Lively) driven from home by her pill popping and manipulative mother (Maria Bello), the young Pippa proceeded to drift through life hanging out with musicians and artists.

However, meeting and marrying the much older Herb (Alan Arkin) made Pippa settle down into family life. Now Herb’s retired and they’ve moved to the country, but Pippa is no longer content. For a start Herb’s heart is playing up, his best mate Sam (Mike Binder) is clearly in love with Pippa while hanging out with the just as clearly bonkers Sandra (Winona Ryder), and Pippa herself has started to sleepwalk. It’s when she awakens to find herself standing in the convenience store in her nightie, and has to be driven home by the clerk Chris (Keanu Reeves), that she realises her life is unravelling. While she desperately tries to hold things together she knows in her heart she must confront her past if she is going to sort things out in the present.

With a magnificent central performance from Wright Penn, the movie is a wonderfully wry, slightly skewed look at the way life continually throws curveballs at us all. Her Pippa is a complex, multi-layered woman who is used to sorting out everybody else’s lives, so when her own falls apart she is appalled and baffled and rather scared, and Wright Penn manages to convey all this with just a tight smile.

Director Rebecca Miller handles the large ensemble cast with aplomb, making them all rounded characters in their own right. Ryder and Reeves give their best performances in years, Bello is a monster as the mother and yet also pitiable, while cameos from Julianne Moore and Monica Bellucci make this a movie with the strongest parts for females in years.

It’s dark but in places laugh out loud funny and by rights should earn Wright Penn an Oscar nod.

Dee Pilgrim

From the producers of Little Miss Sunshine comes this equally quirky, poignantly funny film about sisterhood, motherhood, small dreams and big amounts of mess.

The sisters are Rose (Amy Adams), a single mum working as a maid, and slobby slacker Norah (Emily Blunt), who is so incompetent she can’t even keep her job as a diner waitress. Rose works hard and tries to remain cheery about life, mostly for the sake of her son Oscar (Jason Spavack), a young boy who is old before his time and dad (Alan Arkin), whose get rich quick schemes usually end in disaster.

But money matters weigh Rose down, so when she hears big bucks can be made in the crime scene clear-up business she peels on her Marigolds, packs the vacuum in the boot of her car and gets ready to scrub. She enlists Norah’s help in this new venture and the sisters are soon up to their elbows in homicides, suicides and bodily fluids.

It’s at this point Rose realises she needs some help and a visit to the local cleaning product wholesaler sees her meeting Winston (Clifton Collins Jr.) the one-armed sales assistant who not only points her on the straight and narrow as far as bleaches and cleaning foams are concerned, but also makes her reconsider her long-term and unsatisfying affair with a married man.

This is a small film dealing with the minutiae of real people’s lives; the daily upsets and setbacks, and the struggle to just keep going. However, far from being a thoroughly depressing experience, it’s actually incredibly cathartic and moving, mainly because Amy Adams is such an adorable character. She makes Rose naturally attractive with an openness and honesty of spirit that makes the audience get firmly behind her. Blunt has a slightly harder job of it with Norah, whose awkwardness and laziness initially make her less easy to like, but who seems to wake up on screen as the film progresses.

Then there’s the uncanny chemistry between Oscar and his granddad, both dreaming of a better life and bigger opportunities. The excellent acting is complemented by some stunning location work in and around Albuquerque that almost becomes another character in the movie.

There’s nothing big or clever about this film, just a whole lot of heart, making it a really satisfying cinema experience.

Dee Pilgrim

In which director Carlos Cuaron and actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are reunited after the success that was Y Tu Mama Tambien.

The story here is a lightweight tale of two footballing brothers who both become stars for opposing teams in the Mexican domestic league.  Rudo (Luna) is the more talented of the pair, although he has problems with his mercurial temper, but it is baby brother Cursi (Bernal) who becomes the biggest star, giving him the clout to launch a doomed foray into music.

Like many brothers, Rudo and Cursi love each other and are fiercely loyal to each other, but they are also fiercely competitive and their bids to gain the upper hand produce much of the movie’s humour. You don’t actually get to see much football action, but the brothers’ frequent spats certainly make the time pass quickly. There’s also the rather incongruous sight of Bernal, in outsize cowboy hat, slaughtering I Want You To Want Me – in Spanish of course.

Even a more serious storyline about gambling debts and throwing games can’t dim the film’s lightweight sunny nature, which Cuaron handles with delicately deft fingers. So, it’s not what you’d call compulsive viewing, but it is entertaining in a sub-Premier League kind of way.

Dee Pilgrim