By staff writer Simonne Cullen
April 15, 2007
There's one episode of Sex and the City where Carrie, after humiliating her ex Aidan, makes feverish attempts for him to take her back. And even though he yells from his rooftop, “YOU BROKE MY HEART!” and Carrie runs in the dark streets of New York eighteen minutes into the episode, don’t worry ladies, by minute twenty-five he decides to take her back.
While there are similar situations like that in real life, the endings are never bittersweet, because in reality, Aidan would have called the cops and had her ass hauled off his doorstep in handcuffs for sexual harassment. Every day I see Hollywood mongrels having lunch and going over scripts with the words, “Well, it’s a pretty thin plot but stick that Matthew McConaughey guy in there and we’ve got a pretty solid opening weekend.” Romantic comedy plots are always flimsy, but it’s a genre that will never die. As long as there’s a cute guy and an underdog for a girl, it’ll sell faster than Brad Pitt’s armpit sweat on Ebay.
And I know that there's a good chick flick every once in a while, but really it’s the same old story line: two people pretend to be someone they're not, they discover who they really are, admit to their faults, and love each other anyway. Cue music. Roll credits. Thanks for your ten bucks, we hope you’ve enjoyed the crap.
Let’s analyze the best of the worst shall we?
My Best Friend's Wedding
“These romantic comedies look tempting in the sales bin at Target, but it's more tempting to watch them doused in gasoline.”
After several failed attempts at sabotaging her “best” guy friend’s wedding plans, Julia Roberts’ character finally plants a big wet juicy kiss in her skeezy black denim pants on the groom while future bride Cameron Diaz looks on in utter horror. After a chase scene though downtown Chicago in afternoon traffic Julia abandons her getaway vehicle (a stolen bread truck) and confesses to the groom that she deliberately tried to ruin his life.
Movie Version Ending: Dermont compares her to fungus, then thanks, THANKS her for loving him so much. He invites her to the wedding,as maid of honor, and marries Cameron Diaz.
In Reality: Dermont compares her to fungus, tells her to fuck off, leaves her swarmy ass at the train station and files for a restraining order immediately following the wedding ceremony.
While You Were Sleeping
Sandra collects tokens for a living at an elevated Chicago subway platform. She falls in love with a guy she sees for 8 seconds every Monday through Friday mornings. She jumps on to the tracks to save him from an oncoming train and pulls him to safety. She is mistaken at the hospital for his fiancée and since the guy is in a coma, she continues for weeks to pretend that she is his betrothed. Over the course of 10 days, she falls madly in love with his brother and has to choose.
Movie Version Ending: She sobbingly confesses adorably that she was lonely and wanted so much to be a part of the family. Several days later, the good brother shows up at her work with an engagement ring instead of a token. They kiss and get married on a subway car.
In Reality: Sandra is forced to confess at the rehearsal dinner (third floor, in the hospital’s cafeteria) over soggy tapioca pudding that she was never engaged. Both brothers, maddened by the deception, leave the room, never to return, and the sister throws her Jell-O in Sandra’s face. Oh, and the cute grandma dies.
The Wedding Date
Debra hires an American escort to fly overseas to England and pose as her boyfriend for her sister’s wedding. She begins to fall in love with escort while making her ex-fiancée jealous. Secrets are revealed and Debra discovers not only is her escort a hooker, but he didn’t tell her that her little sister was shagging her ex-fiancée!
Movie Version Ending: After sending him away, the escort returns, and after knowing her for a total of four days says, “I’d rather fight with you than be happy with anyone else.” As well as the endearing, “I think I’d miss you even if we never met.” They kiss and the scene ends with an upbeat dance montage.
In Reality: Everyone finds out that Debra hired an escort and is the family joke until she is 50. The escort takes off with his six thousand dollars, and continues being a happy gigolo in NYC, having sex with women for money.
The Wedding Planner
The main character’s career is to plan wedding days, but her hobbies include refolding already folded sweaters, alphabetizing her CD collection, and scrubbing the kitchen tile with a Q-tip. She starts planning a wedding and falls in love with the groom. Big no-no.
Movie Version Ending: The groom and bride realize that after five years together, they’re no longer in love. Naturally, this realization comes on their wedding day. The bride leaves for Tahiti in a taxi and the former groom finds his wedding planner in a park throwing perfectly good candy on the ground. They dance. They kiss. The credits roll.
In Reality: For leading such a prolifically boring life, fate attempts to take her out by means of a runaway dumpster. She is flattened like a pancake. She never meets the doctor, the couple hires a flamingly gay wedding planner, and divorce four years later thirty pounds heavier.
Failure to Launch
Nothing says unconditional love like your parents hiring a freelance girlfriend to break your son’s heart so he’ll move out the house just because your father wants to walk around stark naked all day. The freelance-whore and the guy fall for each other, and he finds out she’s hired help… uh-oh.
Movie Version Ending: Freelance lover gets locked in a room with the guy gagged and tied to a chair. They talk. Make up. Kiss. Sail away on a big pretty boat.
In Reality: Freelance lover gets locked in a room with the guy gagged and tied to a chair. She takes all the money out of his wallet, breaks a window, and climbs out to freedom. She drops helping families to focus on becoming a high class hooker who gets a lot of frequent flyer miles, if you know what I mean. Oh, and Matt gets eaten by a very carnivorous dolphin.
Maid in Manhattan
A Latina hotel maid falls in love with a white congressman. She pretends to be rich. He pretends to be in love. They go on a couple dates. It’s revealed that she’s just a maid from the Bronx- with an illegitimate child. His political career is swimming in scandal. What now?
Movie Ending Version: They go through a music montage of a bad period without each other. They sum up three really bad months in about two and a half minutes worth of sad music and depressing scene footage. He ends up speaking at the new hotel she’s working in. They see each other, ignore their social differences, and kiss deeply in front of the press.
In Reality: The congressman has taken a soft spot with the cute and charming illegitimate child. He hires the maid to work at his manor in upstate New York where the kid can breathe some fresh air. Later he marries a woman name Fifi whose hobbies include plastic surgery and massages from the pool boy.
How to Lose A Guy In Ten Days
Kate wants to write for Time instead she writes for Cosmo. So she takes on a story to dump a guy in ten days. If it’s good she can write about starvation in third world countries. Meanwhile, Matt, wants to nab a diamond ad account- he must make a woman fall in love with him in a week.
Movie Version Ending: They go through a series of trials, making each other miserable. They find out they are both liars, but end up getting back together in yet another chase scene through downtown New York City gridlock.
In Reality: They never even meet. Kate tires of writing about Botox and leg waxing, submits her articles to a variety of publications, Newsweek picks her up and starts her out as a copy editor, and Matt gets a diamond ad account by sleeping with diamond dealer’s wife.
View from the Top
A small town girl goes to flight attendant school, gets suckered by her best friend, and is forced to live in the exciting city of Cleveland. She meets a law school student, moves in with him, falls in love, gets transferred to NYC, and leaves him to go be a glorified waitress. She misses him very very much, but doesn’t want to live in a small town.
Movie Version Ending: She leaves Paris, on Christmas, and stalks him at his parent’s house. She sobbingly confesses she was wrong and leaving him was a mistake to his 90% deaf grandma who doesn’t remember who she is, but let’s her stay in the house anyway. The guy overhears the confession and takes her back. She becomes a pilot.
In Reality: After several drunk dialing incidents from the road, she sobbingly confesses at his doorstep while he and his new girlfriend (who isn’t packing as much emotional baggage) look on with pity. He gives her a pat on the back and encourages her to maybe just continue with international routes that never ever go through Cleveland.
Sure these romantic comedies look tempting in the five dollar sales bin at Target, but once you’ve finished watching, it’s even more tempting to watch them doused in gasoline, set on fire, and catapulted into a tar pit. The only thing that separated Wedding Crashers from this list was the naked movie montage in the beginning, and the fact that the main love interest wasn’t a complete pussy—or Matthew McConaughey.