Romantic comedies are one of the more structured genres of movies. Many of them will have a primary romantic couple hooking up while a secondary romantic couple – sometimes the primary romantic couple’s sidekicks, though not always – hooks up as well.
“Failure to Launch” is on TV tonight and when I surfed past it, the movie’s secondary romantic couple, wacky sidekick Zoey Deschanel and whoever the hell the guy was played by, were on, and it reminded me of how much more fun an interesting they were than the primary romantic couple (Sarah Jessica Parker’s matchmaker and Matthew McCounaghey’s stay-at-home adult son).
I found Sarah Parker’s character to be kind of a heartless bitch and Matthew McConnaughey’s to be an immature narcissist, so they weren’t appealing at all. Zoey Deschanel and the guy were both appealing … the scene with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of the bird they shot was hilarious.
It occurred to me that there were a lot of movies that had more interesting secondary romantic couples, though I can’t recall any others offhand. But I know Dopers will. What other movies have secondary romantic couples that are more interesting than the primary romantic couple?
It ain’t a movie (well, I guess it is, but I haven’t seen any of it so I don’t know if the relative levels of character interest are the same as in the book, where was I oh yeah), but I always felt that Brian de Bois-Guilbert and Rebecca of York would have made a much more exciting love story than Ivanhoe and Rowena. Pity Rebecca wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.
Vicky Christina Barcelona.
The primary and secondary romances are a kinda tricky to sort out, but I would say that the primary romance is Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). But the secondary romance (and more way more interesting) is Christina (Scarlett Johansson) and Juan Antonio with a little bit of Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) thrown in for some added psycho.
One could also argue that Maria Elena and Jaun Antonio are the primary romance and that everything else is secondary to them OR that Vicky and her fiance Doug are the primary romance and that everything else is secondary OR Christina and Juan are primary and Maria and Juan are secondary…but I’m going to go with my original thought.
In Can’t Hardly Wait, the relationship between Denise (Lauren Ambrose) and Kenny (Seth Green) is more interesting than that between Preston (Ethan Embry) and Amanda (Jennifer Love Hewitt).
One could argue that Theseus and Hippolyta were the primary couple in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and that the whole bit with Helena, Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius was just an extended B-plot. And then, of course, there’s Oberon/Titania.
I think that’s practically the rule for Richard Curtis’ romcoms:
Four Weddings & a Funeral: the gay couple’s story was heartbreaking, the budding love between Hugh Grant’s character’s deaf brother and the sweet girl who learns sign language for him and even Hugh’s sister taking up with the handsome Texan at the very end were all more interesting to me than the central tryst – er, relationship – between he and Andie MacDowell.
Notting Hill: Hugh Grant’s friends (and especially housemate!) are all more compelling characters than those of Hugh Grant’s bookshop owner and Julia Roberts’ movie star. The married couple (she was in a wheelchair; her husband lovingly carried her upstairs each night) had a romance anyone could envy.
Love, Actually: by FAR the worst-drawn couple was the P.M. and the Downing St. secretary. Ludicrous and utterly unbelievable, those two.
I dunno if it’s that, for Curtis, the central couple must be bland and insipid, or if he just can’t write his best for Hugh Grant, but it bugs me a bit. Although it hasn’t hurt his career, reputation or box office, I’ll grant!
There was a recent movie that I watched with the boyfriend and we both agreed that the secondary characters were more interesting and kept expecting them to hook up. The movie was very forgettable because I can’t remember the name or who was in it. It was one of the movies where the guy’s an ass then realizes he loves the girl and has to do everything he can to not be an ass anymore.
I always thought the romance for Ms Dipesto and Booger worked a lot better than that between Maddie and David on Moonlighting.
The same is true on Bones with Angie and Hodgins.
Heck it’s probably true for almost every series with a lead and a secondary romantic set of couples, since the main couple isn’t allowed to get together too soon due to "romantic tension’ nonsense, but there’s no such rule against the secondary couple.
I don’t think Scarlett was Charles’s sister – different accents, different social classes…? They’re just platonic roommates, I think.
Curtis has said that the success of Four Weddings seemed to have a lot to do with Hugh Grant – something like, “If possible, put Hugh Grant in your movie and it will do well” (and has, in fact put Grant in a lot of stuff he’s been involved with).
I saw the production of Ivanhoe with some young Irish actor playing Sir Brian and actually felt sorry for the poor bastard, who was so painfully in love with this beautiful, mysterious woman that his society kept telling him he should have nothing to do with. That’s when I knew that Ciaran Hinds was Someone to Watch (and I wasn’t wrong on that point!).
I don’t think Love, Actually can reasonably count for this purpose, as there was no central character or characters. There were just several interlocking stories.
I thought Vince Vaughn and amy Adams (?) love story trumped Owen Wilson’s in Wedding Crashers. Also, in Hitch the accountant and heriess were much more interesting than Will Smith and Evan Mendes’ courtship…
In When Harry Met Sally, I was mildly entertained but also annoyed by the main characters, but loved everything about the romance between Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby.
I’m going to disagree with Sense and Sensibility, mainly because I don’t think the Brandon/Marianne/Willoughby storyline is the “side” romance in the tale – it’s parallel but not a subplot. I think both Marianne and Elinor’s plots are equally weighted.
(Also I love the Elinor/Edward romance and think it gets unfairly overshadowed by the flashier, more dramatic Marianne/Brandon/Willoughby triangle. Hugh Grant is underappreciated in his performance as subdued but sweet Edward.)