I found "Pretty Woman" charming, and I suppose I still do, but in one respect its storyline is contrived. (In ONE respect? I hear you ask. Well, maybe more than one, but only one that worries me.) This much of the standard formula a light love story MUST follow: (a) boy falls in love with girl, (b) girl falls in love with boy, (c) obstacle, (d) union. Timing is surprisingly unimportant. It doesn't matter when (c) is established - it can be before the curtain rises, or half an hour before it falls - nor does it matter if (a) and (b) are simultaneous, or over an hour apart. (And obviously it doesn't matter which one comes first. Even the order c-b-d-a is acceptable.) The trouble with "Pretty Woman" is (c). So she's a prostitute. So what? It's a pity that twentieth-century writers have somehow acquired the idea that external obstacles are less interesting than internal ones: it isn't true, and in any event, internal obstacles are harder to draw convincingly.
Which is why (FINALLY, I get to the point) "Runaway Bride" is a more pleasant confection than "Pretty Woman". Believe me, you don't know how surprised I am to find myself writing this. Before I saw the movie I was all but certain it would be deathly stale. The premise - love blossoms between an insulting newspaper columnist and a serial jilter he writes about - screamed, "This will spend two hours going nowhere" at me ... and the curious thing is, now that I've seen the film, I can't even remember why I found the idea so unpromising. Maybe I was unduly swayed by the last Julia Roberts romantic comedy I saw, "I Love Trouble", which was at once thin, bloated, and flat.
"Runaway Bride" is none of these things. It's over two hours, but none of this is bloat: it takes its time because it NEEDS this time, given obstacle (c), to convincingly establish (a) and (b). The film doesn't waste our time any more than it wastes our own. I was never bored; very often I was even basking in the glow. Tastes in romantic comedy are hard to justify or defend, so I'll leave it at that.
Which is why (FINALLY, I get to the point) "Runaway Bride" is a more pleasant confection than "Pretty Woman". Believe me, you don't know how surprised I am to find myself writing this. Before I saw the movie I was all but certain it would be deathly stale. The premise - love blossoms between an insulting newspaper columnist and a serial jilter he writes about - screamed, "This will spend two hours going nowhere" at me ... and the curious thing is, now that I've seen the film, I can't even remember why I found the idea so unpromising. Maybe I was unduly swayed by the last Julia Roberts romantic comedy I saw, "I Love Trouble", which was at once thin, bloated, and flat.
"Runaway Bride" is none of these things. It's over two hours, but none of this is bloat: it takes its time because it NEEDS this time, given obstacle (c), to convincingly establish (a) and (b). The film doesn't waste our time any more than it wastes our own. I was never bored; very often I was even basking in the glow. Tastes in romantic comedy are hard to justify or defend, so I'll leave it at that.