A love affair grows cold

We need to talk. This relationship just isn't working for me.

I'm talking about romantic comedies over the past few years. Time and time again, I've sat popcorn in hand at the start of a big-studio rom-com, waiting to be swept off my feet by some movie-star chemistry or charmingly witty repartee. And what I usually get, these days, are bathroom jokes ("You, Me & Dupree," "Two Weeks Notice"), vomit scenes ("Fever Pitch"), inane plots ("Failure to Launch," "The Wedding Date"), ill-conceived star pairings ("Rumor Has It," "Maid in Manhattan") and overlong, sporadically funny sex jokes ("Wedding Crashers," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin") — not to mention so-called romantic comedies ("The Break-Up") that aren't romantic or funny at all.

Now, as audiences await the holiday season's only major romantic comedy ("The Holiday," due Dec. 8, in which Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet house-swap and, perhaps, man-swap), I have to wonder: Where did all the romance go? What happened to the concept of a date movie? (Well, it turned into a raunchy satire called "Date Movie" and was in theaters last winter.) Does nobody know how to write funny, flirty dialogue any more? Am I going to have to spend the rest of my days watching old Hepburn movies (Katharine or Audrey, take your pick) when I want a rom-com fix? In other words, what happened to what should be the warmest and happiest of genres?

As always in the movie business, part of the answer lurks in the box office. If you look at the list of the top 50 U.S. blockbusters of all time, you'll only find one romantic comedy — and it didn't come from Hollywood. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," the runaway hit of 2002, was made without big-studio money and without big stars. (Its star and screenwriter was the then-unknown Nia Vardalos.) The warm if somewhat sitcommy story of a Greek-American woman's romance and ultimate marriage to a non-Greek man, it opened in a handful of theaters in April 2002, and was still in theaters nearly a year later, earning more than $240 million.

"Wedding," in theory, should have kicked off a new wave of romantic comedy, the way the success of "Chicago" ushered in a new mini-era of movie musicals. But instead it stands alone in its genre: the only romantic comedy in history to make more than $200 million. (Only a handful have made even half that, and those tend to be formulaic star vehicles: "Hitch" for Will Smith, "Sweet Home Alabama" for Reese Witherspoon, "Runaway Bride" for Julia Roberts.)

Instead of learning that perhaps audiences are hankering for romantic tales of real (or realish) people, told without the showy flatness most big-budget rom-coms employ, the studios seem to have decided that "Wedding" was a fluke. Audiences don't line up for romantic comedy the way they do for comic-book movies and blockbuster book adaptations (hmm, could that be because the movies have been so lousy?), so Hollywood has more or less abandoned the genre. Most studios release no more than a couple a year, throwing together a star from List A and one from List B, spending as little as possible and seemingly thinking even less.

Which leads us to another problem: chemistry. Watch Myrna Loy and William Powell in "The Thin Man," Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday," Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in anything, and you'll see a spark, a pop, a whole that's greater than its individual parts. (It's a mistake, though, to think that vintage romantic comedies are by definition superior to their contemporary counterparts. Hollywood made plenty of clunkers back then, too — we just don't see them, because they've appropriately faded away.)

Chemistry is a mysterious thing, and sometimes it turns up where you're not expecting it. Watch "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and note that Hugh Grant sparks much more off Kristin Scott Thomas than the lovely, but sometimes wooden Andie MacDowell; his smile gets naughtier, and you wonder about the story the movie hints at but never tells. Or consider how Drew Barrymore seems to spark with everyone — Adam Sandler, Jimmy Fallon, Ben Stiller, that guy in "My Date with Drew" — but when you look closer, it's because she's doing all the work.

Too often, though, romantic comedies can seem cast by committee, with little thought of how the two might sync up. (Consider, for example, the casting meetings for "Maid in Manhattan," which concluded that it would be a fine idea to unite the fans of Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez.) Or, having shot their wad on a mega-star, studios cast someone less vivid — and, needless to say, cheaper — as co-star. (Those go-to "Sex and the City" alums John Corbett and Ron Livingston — cast, forgettably, opposite Kate Hudson and Brittany Murphy of late — come to mind.) Or a movie ends up featuring an off-screen couple, like Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn in "The Break-Up" — and there's nothing on screen that convinces you that the two have ever even met. Or, in a true rom-com cop-out, they just cast Meg Ryan ("Kate and Leopold"), and call it a day.

And then there's the writing. Admittedly, it's difficult to think of something new to do with the boy-meets-girl story. (Recent boy-meets-boy and girl-meets-girl art-house releases — "Another Gay Movie" and "Imagine Me and You," respectively — haven't been much better.) But it's not necessary to think of some bizarro plot contrivance, such as parents hiring a woman to urge their son to move out of the house ("Failure to Launch"). All that it takes is a little wit, charm and invention — now, is that so hard?

A few recent movies outside the Hollywood studio system have managed to find freshness in the rom-com formula. Anyone catch "Pipe Dream," a Seattle International Film Festival offering a few years back about a plumber (Martin Donovan), a screenwriter (Mary-Louise Parker), and an original, funny scenario that ends with love? Why didn't this movie get a theatrical run? "Mostly Martha," a German charmer from 2003, did find a small audience in theaters; it's now being remade, with Catherine Zeta-Jones (and, let us hope, a light hand) as "No Reservations."

And on the big-studio front, occasionally there's reason for hope. 2003's "Something's Gotta Give" (from Nancy Meyers, who also wrote/directed "The Holiday") was lighter-than-soufflé fare, but it did something unusual: showcasing the comedic (and physical) charms of Diane Keaton, then in her late 50s and probably not getting too many rom-com scripts. Gary Winick's "13 Going on 30" mixed the time-travel and rom-com genres, with sweet results. (Why hasn't Jennifer Garner, who displayed an adorably deft touch here, been swamped with rom-com offers?) And you know that Drew Barrymore is going to make a classic romantic comedy someday, when she starts choosing screenplays more carefully.

So I'm not giving up entirely, and maybe "The Holiday" — or some fabulous movie I don't even know about yet — will help get romantic comedies back on track. In the meantime, check the rom-com shelf at the video store, where the good stuff lives forever.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com