Response Paper: Life as We Know It

Kenneth Malate
Professor Wexler
English 313
Response Paper
Admittedly, this was one of the harder essays I’ve ever had to write in my life. Not because of the paper itself, but because I for one am a connoisseur of the romantic comedy genre. I felt that by analyzing a movie from this genre would somehow persuade my mind to look at these movies in a different light. That wasn’t exactly the case. In fact, it seemed like every single movie that I’ve seen seems to make a lot more sense now, not only aesthetically, but also in a deeper sense of the movie making experience.
I was initially only interested in one movie. The movie was recently released. It is a film by Greg Berlanti called “Life as We Know It.” In the film the main protagonists, Holly and Messer, were chosen to be the caring adoptive parents of a little baby girl named Sophie after a tragic accident took the lives of her parents, who also happened to be the best friends of Holly and Messer. Here’s the catch, Holly and Messer and completely different people, emotionally and philosophically. In fact, they almost hate each other, especially after botching a blind date they were set up on just a few years back. This particular movie tackles a few topics we’ve discussed in class.
One of them is from the Romantic Comedy book by Tamar McDonald. According to McDonald, every single “traditional” romantic comedy movie follows a certain pattern. There’s a certain flow to every movie, so he states. He says that romantic comedy’s frameworks are designed as follows, “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, then boy regains girl [happily ever after follows].”(McDonald) Every single movie that attempts to achieve that “feel good” emotion from their audiences attempts this very said style of filmography. This movie is no different than any other. The interesting part though is that this is a classical romantic comedy that tries to mask itself as a non-traditional one. For instance, one would say that in a “typical” movie, you would see the main family as being from the same blood lines and same family structure, but not this movie. The marriage structure is basically non-existent, the child they both take care of is not even theirs, which makes the whole family structure whacked.
In a sense this movie does follow the traditional way most romantic comedies are intended to be. “The radical romantic comedy acknowledges that its characters are in search of meaningful and satisfying relationships; and sometimes to the contrary, that they also seek romance” (McDonald) They have the same thematic style of boy meets, loses and regains girl. What’s interesting of course is the movie’s on radical way of drafting out that same exact scenario. By analyzing movies, especially with the luxury of having the knowledge of the classical pattern of movies, it makes movie watching somewhat of a bore since most movies tends to fall into the unintended predictability most romantic comedies suffer through. Again, like every other aspect of this movie, this falls in with that same problem. It seemed like the discourse and the way the movie was served just prolonged the inevitable. The “meeting” was brief and short as it was shown in the beginning and it was quickly done through the introduction and opening credits. The in between of course is always the best part as this is where the main plot and conflict are shown.
Another topic that was discussed in class that was tackled in this movie is this the idea of the “title one has.” For instance, what makes someone a “mother.” Does it have to be something that is biological? In the movie, Holly technically gets custody of Sophie when her parents passed away and she ultimately becomes her “mother.”
Life as We Know It tackles two main ideas discussed in our class meetings. One is the idea of what a romantic comedy is against what a radical romantic comedy is. The other is Derrida’s relational definition of objects as they are seen with conjunction to the materials they are being compared with. Life as We Know It makes for a great movie considering it’s elemental components and dynamic story plot that makes it sort of a classic staple for a not-so-radical radical romantic comedy.


Citations
Life As We Know It. Dir. Greg Berlanti. Perf. Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel. Warner Bros, 2010. Film
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. New York:
Wallflower Press, 2007. Print.