Matthew McConaughey

Boy Meets Girl. Boy Gets Girl. Boy Loses Girl. Boy Gets Girl Back. Seems easy enough. So why is it so hard for two good looking people to fall in love at the movies? You’d think it would be easy for two absurdly good looking people, who have great chemistry, are definitely attracted to each other, and are seemingly intelligent, to not screw their relationship up so badly that it takes Matthew McConaughey shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge to make things better.

I was thinking about this the other day while watching Kevin Smith’s best movie, Chasing Amy. Affleck does everything in his power to win over Joey Lauren Adams, only to do even more just to ruin the relationship once he has her. It’s enough to make you hate him (assuming Pearl Harbor didn’t do the trick for you). I got so mad wondering why movie romances are so screwed up and overly-complicated, when it dawned on me that it’s all intentional.

Sure, every movie needs a conflict, so if the movie is about two lovers the conflict has to be the lovers potentially not being together. But there’s more to it. It’s not that the Boy and the Girl in a Boy Meets Girl movie are merely following the plot points of the screenplay (though they are). The Boy and Girl are actually doing specific jobs of their characters. By doing their jobs they are creating the time-honored “Boy Meets Girl” scenario. The how’s and the where’s and the why’s are the job of the director and screenwriter. But the actions, those belong to the Boy and Girl.

Today we’re going to examine the jobs of the Boy in a “Boy Meets Girl” movie. And another day, we’ll let the Girl have her turn.

The Jobs of the Boy in a “Boy Meets Girl” Movie:

1. Boy Must Be Loving His Life – Before the Boy meets the Girl it is important to establish that he is a good catch. That he is wealthy and/or good looking and/or has abs for days. He must show how in control of his life he is by performing an elaborate morning pedeconference through his office (where he shows up late and no one cares) and suavely flirt with every female co-worker, slap high fives with the guys, make plans to go to the game on Saturday, eat a donut, schedule his next meeting with a nervous, over eager assistant running alongside him and smile the smile of a Boy who doesn’t need a Girl to complete him, the entire time. Bonus points if he says to the assistant “My life just could not get any better” or “I wonder where I can get a $3000 hooker to be my valet / sex slave for a week”.

2. Boy Must Meet Girl – Boy is required to meet the girl in an annoyingly “cute way”, like shopping for the same pair of gloves, driving her cross country, refusing to move out of his parents house and thereby forcing them to hire the Girl to motivate him to leave, having a complete mental breakdown, writing a mission statement, getting fired from his agency, performing a long-winded speech, stealing a goldfish and inspiring the Girl to follow him on his crazy plan to start a new agency, or by hiring her off the street for $3000 dollars.

3. Boy Must Convince Girl To Date Him – It is likely that the Girl will be the polar opposite of the Boy. She’s wild and crazy and he’s very reserved. She’s the head cheerleader and he’s a nerd. She’s a big movie star and he’s a floppy English travel book salesman, and so on. It is also likely that Girl will hate the Boy at the initial encounter. Yes, there were sparks of chemistry and an obnoxious level of witty banter, but in the end, Girl thinks Boy is a rude, arrogant heffalump of a man and wants nothing to do with him. Boy must wait this crazy woman out. By the second reel she will see Boy’s true self and dutifully fall in love with him. It doesn’t matter if she is dying, is psychotic, is a lesbian or a no-nonsense street walker.

4. Boy Must Take Girl On A Movie Date Montage – To show that the relationship is heating up, Boy is required to take Girl on a serious of overly-romantic, exceedingly expensive and needlessly time consuming dates, to show that he loves the Girl. These dates can include: taking her to a ballgame where a baseball will inevitably be hit right to her, taking her shopping and serenely watching her try on everything in the store and then whipping out your American Express card to her cheers of glee, taking her on a ride on his motorcycle and doing a wheelie, which will in no way knock her off the bike and shatter her pelvis, have dinner prepared in a highly unusual place like the top of a mountain or, or take her to a club and dance really, really badly (this one is only necessary if the Boy finds himself in a Ben Stiller movie).

5. Boy Must Do Something Stupid – Boy cannot lose the girl by being smart. He invariably must: drunkenly hook up with an ex-girlfriend, get caught in a seemingly salacious but really completely innocent embrace with said ex-girlfriend, lie to Girl about his job, play basketball with Wesley Snipes, bet that he could take her glasses off, pull down her ponytail and “poof” make a hottie actress into an even hottier actress and/or prom queen, be British, take her to a motel room and try and have sex with her because he found out she used to be a porn star, or remind her that he paid her $3000 dollars to have sex with him and be his valet for a week.

This will result in the crucial, yet necessary step: “Boy Loses Girl”.

6. Boy Must Have Epiphany – This is often accompanied by a long, soul-searching walk near a large body of water, accompanied by deep important close-ups and lots of running to go find Girl and tell her about his Epiphany. Epiphany works even better if it occurs on a public transportation vehicle, thereby requiring said vehicle to slam on its brakes in a gratuitously dramatic way and/or stop just in time for the Boy to not go where he was supposed to go (see Garden State and Fools Rush In).

7. Boy Must Learn Something IMPORTANT – This could range from realizing he should not have suggested a three-way with his best friend to his lesbian girlfriend, that he should not be afraid to love the biggest movie star in the world, that he was an idiot for banging his best friend, not cuddling afterwards and going home to get ready for an “early meeting” or for realizing that it’s OK to be in love with a hooker, so long as she has a heart of gold and fifty billion teeth.

8. Boy Must Give an Impassioned Redemptory Speech to Girl in a Wildly Inappropriate Place (The More Inappropriate the Better) – If he can block traffic along the Brooklyn Bridge it is a virtual certainty that the Girl will forgive him no matter what he did wrong (and every driver for five miles back will hunt him down and kill him when he sleeps). If he can stop a wedding, chances are good she won’t marry the wrong guy (though it’s 50/50 that the spurned groom will deck him before the end credits).

9. When In Doubt, Boy Must Punch An Asshole In The Face – This will show the Girl that the Boy is a real man, that he can protect her, and that he isn’t taking anymore crap from the asshole she’s been dating and sleeping with for the last two years, because damn it, the Boy must have the Girl! The punch will always go rewarded by: a kiss from the Girl, the Girl showing the Boy her tits to prove she’s really a girl and not just one of the guys, the Girl’s parents finally giving the Boy permission to be with their daughter, or a round of applause and cheers from everyone in the near vicinity.

The punch will not lead, however, to the Boy breaking his hand or the asshole getting up and violently beating the Boy with a steel chair. Also, the Boy will never be charged with assault. In fact, the cops may even let the Boy throw the punch while the asshole is cuffed and defenseless. This is always the optimal situation for punching the other guy in the face, as he will be immediately led away and will no longer compete for screen time.

10. Boy Must Surrender His Manhood To Girl –Though they get to live happily ever after, Boy is obligated to disavow, disown or completely abandon his former lifestyle and friends. If he used to be a date doctor, guess what, now he’s not. If he was a down home Southern Gentleman, now he must move to the big city. If he was a borderline manic depressive and needed his medication to regulate his behavior, he must now overcome his chemical imbalance without the use of his medication, for the happiness of the Girl. It doesn’t matter if this is not what he wants, or if this is even healthy for him, or for the relationship. He must focus his entire being on the Girl and shun anything that may serve as a potential future obstacle and/or source of fun for the rest of his life.

11. Boy Must Live Happily Ever After With the Girl – Unless there’s a sequel, wherein he’s required to re-do steps 2-10. And also, he’s in space. Or he has to find Davy Jones. Or she’s on a yacht held captive by terrorists. Or he must Die Hard.

But that’s an entirely different type of movie.

Bangarang!