Isn’t It Romantic? feels like a rhetorical question

Movie review: Isn’t It Romantic?

Rebel Wilson leads a revolutionary effort through the red taffeta jungle of rom-coms, but fails to topple the upper tier of icing-covered couple expectations. And that’s probably just the way we want it. “Somewhere deep down, we crave a fairy tale ending for a relatable character — just as we do for ourselves,” writes movie critic Katherine Monk.

Isn’t it Romantic?

3.5/5

Starring: Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam Devine,

Directed by: Todd Strauss-Schulson

Running time: 1 hr 28 mins

Rating: PG-13

By Katherine Monk

Cinderella, dressed in yella, went upstairs to kiss a fella. There’s more, but that’s the only part that’s lodged in my wet ware like a popcorn kernel beneath the gum line: A scrap of a skipping rope song learned by little girls in the earliest days of post-amniotic awareness, a narrative guide to a future dynamic with the opposite sex.

We learn the princess ideal so early that it’s hard to trace how deeply it’s tied into our everyday understanding and experience of human coupling. Though it may explain why, in this cultural moment, we seem decidedly disillusioned by traditional notions of romance. The majority of boomer marriages ended in divorce, and fewer millennials are getting hitched.

We’re questioning fundamental institutions, and Isn’t It Romantic? is just the latest manifestation of our current penchant for trenchant deconstructions of romantic myth. From Amy Schumer’s I Feel Pretty and the anti-Cinderella story Patti Cake$, to the pathos-laden realism beneath LaLa Land’s Technicolor wishes, we’re scratching at aortal scabs. And like all itches, there’s something super-satisfying about nailing the right spot with a good dose of digital friction — even if the results leave a mess.

Isn’t It Romantic? digs into eros’s dermis from the first scene. A young girl watches Pretty Woman with her mother. She’s got stars in her eyes, love in her heart, and hope powered by a ten-speed — until her mother pushes her off the love-cycle with a burst of bubble-popping barbs prophesizing romantic failure. “After all doll, we’re not Julia Roberts.”

Fast-forward a few decades, and we’re watching Natalie (Rebel Wilson) realize every one of her mother’s ugly expectations. She’s single, invisible, and walked on by everyone at work. Even though she’s a successful architect and has tons of natural charisma, Natalie truly believes the world of rom-coms is nothing but “lies set to terrible pop songs.”

Listening to Wilson inventory the genre’s long list of impossibilities and moronic tropes in her Aussie snarl is funny in itself, largely because she finds the right intonation for everything. Somewhere between a heavy sigh and deadpan punchline, Wilson’s delivery pulls Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman’s script off the page with a comic edge that makes you want to keep watching, even when the plot starts to feel mechanical.

Somewhere between a heavy sigh and deadpan punchline, Wilson’s delivery pulls … the script off the page with a comic edge that makes you want to keep watching, even when the plot starts to feel mechanical.

You see, after Natalie gets mugged in the subway and suffers a knock to the head, she enters an alternate, rom-com universe where her apartment is suddenly spacious and decked out in Martha Stewart teals and ivory, and the mean guy across the hall is now her chatty and gay best friend. She’s also got a closet full of shoes and a host of fans at work. Even the handsome new client, Blake (Liam Hemsworth), suddenly finds her “beguiling,” and nothing but “beguiling.”

Natalie resists the new world, but it seems she can’t escape it. She can’t even swear successfully. A random truck will start backing up every time she gets the f-ing urge while spontaneous dance numbers erupt beside her. Wilson wryly ploughs through the cliches, giving every gag a hip check, but also an honest slap to the face. We can all agree the Cinderella ideal isn’t just facile and demeaning, it’s also a little crazy. It’s hoping to be something other, and believing that “otherness” is the only path to happiness.

You don’t need a self-help guru to know the whole human voyage is about accepting, and embracing, everything you already are. Yet, the rom-com still relies on the Jerry Maguire notion of completion.

You don’t need a self-help guru to know the whole human voyage is about accepting, and embracing, everything you already are. Yet, the rom-com still relies on the Jerry Maguire notion of completion.

Isn’t It Romantic? skewers the rom-com kabob, including the Tom Cruise-Renee Zellweger classic: “You had me at helicopter…” It also reaffirms the importance of self-love. Then, somewhat regretfully, it swerves back into the ruts of expectation and delivers a cheesy, yet pleasing, genre ending.

The movie knows we still need it to fully satisfy that Cinderella-dressed-in-yella primal itch. We can intellectualize a desire for a different outcome that reinvents love, but somewhere deep down, we crave a fairy tale ending for a relatable character — just as we do for ourselves.

We can intellectualize a desire for a different outcome that reinvents love, but somewhere deep down, we crave a fairy tale ending for a relatable character — just as we do for ourselves.

Why else buy a lottery ticket?

Isn’t It Romantic? offered the promise of complete genre subversion by opting out of the love lottery altogether, which statistically, according to a recent article in the Atlantic, would have been on trend with the next generation.

Instead, it seems to be saying ‘stay in your own league and you’ll get lucky.’ It’s not bad advice, but it’s not all that romantic, either, leaving Isn’t It Romantic? an open rhetorical question.

@katherinemonk

THE EX-PRESS, February 13, 2019

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Review: Isn’t It Romantic?

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Summary

3.5Score

Isn’t It Romantic? skewers the rom-com kabob, including the Tom Cruise-Renee Zellweger classic: “You had me at helicopter…” It also reaffirms the importance of self-love. Then, somewhat regretfully, it swerves back into the ruts of expectation and delivers a cheesy, yet pleasing, genre ending.. -- Katherine Monk

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