I'll Have What She's Having.

In the 1993 hit movie Sleepless in Seattle, Rosie O’Donnell, having just heard Meg Ryan’s description of love, delivers one of the all-time great movie lines:

Movies! That’s your problem! You don’t want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie.

In this movie Meg’s idea of love is informed by yet another movie, An Affair to Remember, used by all her female friends for it’s wonderful cathartic effect - a complete mystery to the men.

Now Sleepless in Seattle has usurped that old classic as the world’s favourite weepy.

Clearly, modern women are prepared to settle for real love but still hunger for love–in-a-movie. Equally clear is the fact that movies have so influenced our lives that we search for similar deep experience in life and find life wanting.

There may be some credibility to the notion that you can treat your life as a movie and yourself as the screenwriter/star. Maybe we haven’t being paying enough attention to the story arcs and the character dynamics in this thing. If it’s true that we’re the authors of our own misfortunes, maybe we can call in a script doctor and resolve it all in a happy ending.

Meg, as you already know, finally found love-in-a-movie love because she was prepared to follow her heart, dump her fiancé and meet a complete stranger in a dangerous location. But that was in a movie. Don’t even ask about poor old Bill Pullman.

The question remains - does reel life have anything to teach us about real life?  If so, what?

One of the most basic requirements in the search for love is a likely partner. For most women this, ideally, will be a male human being. All other considerations including, age, race, looks, financial security, religious affiliations, looks, social standing, musculature, sexual orientation and looks are, and should be a movable feast.

It’s a commonplace that a Hollywood producer casting a romantic lead needs to appeal to the maximum possible number of women. This is especially important when it comes to looks. It’s no coincidence that most movie heartthrobs look pretty much the same: white, tall, good teeth (for the smiling), slim, white, pert butt etc.

Exceptions are allowed but the exception can only be by one degree. Denzel may not be white but he ticks all the other boxes. Sean and Clint may not be young. The Toms may not be macho and so on.

The English language has a word for people who embody our most commonly accepted attributes and it’s this: Average.

It pays to remember that real life auditions aren’t bound by the Hollywood rule. You’re free to choose a completely unaverage guy (or gal) because your leading man doesn’t have to appeal to anyone but you.

You should also be aware that the personality of the characters in movies is provided by somebody else. Remember Billy Crystal’s emotional honesty in When Harry Met Sally ?

“ I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. “

If you loved that, you were falling for Nora Ephron. She wrote that speech. Most guys don’t have that kind of heavyweight talent in the corner so don’t be too disappointed. If he does come up with that speech, run.

In the real world of romance the eternal question is: where? Where the hell do you go to meet a suitable single male? Let’s assume that single is a desirable attribute. There’s not a lot of romance in Fatal Attraction.

The conventional wisdom on location is a litany of negatives:

Not a Singles Bar (meat-market plus alcohol). Not a Sports bar (jocks plus alcohol). Not a Western Theme Bar (Thelma and Louise). Not any bar (Mickey Rourke).

In the world of movies it’s never about where. Lovers are brought together by one major influence – chance. In the movies a big-time movie star like Julia Roberts hides from photographers in the flat of down-at-heel Hugh Grant. In Pretty Woman Big-time millionaire Richard Gere hires down-at-heel hooker Julia to pretend to be his partner. In While You Were Sleeping Sandra Bullock saves Peter Gallagher’s life after he’s mugged. In You’ve Got Mail Meg meets her sworn enemy Tom in an Internet chatroom.

None of these scenarios works for a real man-hunting strategy. You can’t loiter in your apartment waiting for Liam Neeson to drop by – it doesn’t work. Prostitution isn’t really that romantic nor is assault in a railway station. And never, never believe anybody in a chatroom.

Movies are precious little help when it comes to real scenarios for potential lovers to meet because a screenwriter is required to be interesting. To do this they must create dramatic tension. To do this they dream up scenarios - like Serendipity.

Nutty John Cusack meets crazy Kate Beckinsale over a pair of gloves at Bloomingdales and they kinda suspect they might be falling in love. Kate is so crazy that she puts it to the test by writing his number on a five-dollar bill and spending it straight away - if the bill finds its way back to her their love was meant to be, if not – not. John is so nutty he still wants to see her.

Pahleeze!  If you’re ever glove-shopping at Bloomey’s and there’s a nice neurotic young man like John showing some interest in you, use the five bucks to buy him a coffee.

In life, as in the movies, you have to give chance a chance. You have to be out there available to real-life serendipity. Since you’re going to be out there anyway you might as well be doing something you enjoy. It’ll help pass the down time and it makes good use of the first character-exposition rule: You always look your best when you’re having fun.

Don’t even think about target-rich environments. That’s way too desperate and, in movie terms, it’s a supporting role usually a bitchy one. It’s Lydia in Four Weddings and a Funeral:

 Bernard:  How’s it going Lyds?

 Lydia:  Bloody awful

 Bernard: Oh dear. What’s the problem?

Lydia: I was promised sex. Everybody said it. You'll be a bridesmaid, you'll get sex, you'll be fighting 'em off. But not so much as a tongue in sight.

Bernard:  Well, I mean, if you fancy anything, I could always...

Lydia:  Oh, don't be ridiculous, Bernard. I'm not that desperate.

Lydia, by the way, marries Bernard in the second of the four weddings thus honoring the old Hollywood convention that you’re probably overlooking the love in your life because you’ve been too busy looking somewhere else.

If you have an unmarried male best friend who isn’t gay in whom you can always confide, a man who’s always there for you, a person who, if you considered him for one moment as a love prospect would make you say “Oh – not (his name here) – we’re just friends”, think on.  In the movies he’s likely to be the one. In real life, he probably is gay and not mentioning it. Consider what Billy told Meg:

 Harry:  You realize of course that we could never be friends.

 Sally:   Why not?

Harry:  What I'm saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.

 Sally:  That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.

 Harry:  No you don't.

Romantic movies are not a great resource for opening lines for women. There’s a reason for this. The target audience for romantic movies is women. Women are required to empathise with the female lead.

The female lead doesn’t necessarily have to focus on the attractiveness of the man but the movie does. That’s why the guys get all the best lines. More often than not the female is stuck with the feisty rejoinder. Though sometimes the lady gets to share the honors. This is from Speechless with Geena Davis and Michael Keeton:

 Geena:      Shall we speak the unspoken language of love?

 Michael:   You mean the kind only dogs can hear?

 Geena:      Yes, the very same.

Michael gets the punchline. Geena only gets to set it up. That’s the way it goes. The Hollywood producer is more interested in what a woman wants to hear than what she’d like to say.

Men watching these movies can definitely get the wrong end of the stick and the educational value may be a bit of a mixed bag but Hollywood movies can be an excellent educational resource for the romantically challenged. Even though most of the lessons are of the don’t-do-what-Donny-Don’t-does style, they can help the unwary to avoid falling for Matt Dillon types the way Cameron Diaz did in “Something about Mary”.

Matt:          Oh man…do you have change for a dollar? All I’ve got are these stupid Nepalese coins.

Cam:         You've been to Nepal?

Matt:          Not in months. I don't know why I bought the damn place.

© Ray Lillis 2012