I’d say the genre I’m working within is a romantic comedy. There are rules and parameters to a romantic comedy that need to be adhered to. Clichés and emotional responses that have to ring true, otherwise it seems phony. I have the female protagonist leaving her boyfriend. So here is the big question that I can’t seem to get around.
Why do couples break up? Is there reasoning beyond the things that you have seen in every other movie before?
There are usually three types of boyfriends that the girl breaks up with:
1. He’d a dick, the audience sees that he’s a dick from the first scene they are together and you route for her to find a reason to finally come to her senses and leave him.
2. He’s just not the type of guy she wants to be with anymore. They have grown in separate directions and it’s just not going to work.
3. A little bit of #1 and #2 lead to the relationship ending.
Is that it? What are other reasons why people break up? When I think about my past relationships that’s how it’s gone down. I was a dick, she grew out of me or I grew out of her. Is there something else that I am missing and can’t see it? I’m a guy, so I can only speak from a guy’s point of view. If you are a woman and you read this, maybe you can enlighten me. I’d appreciate the point of view.
I was watching A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese today and he discussed what it is like to be saddled within a genre and that you have to learn to play within those codes. Good enough, I can accept that. Should I just accept the above reasons and try to create a boyfriend that at least has some originality to him? That seems to make the most sense, but is a lot harder than it looks. Make the boyfriend to nice and the audience will not sympathize with our female lead. Make him too much of a prick and we can’t wait to see how he fucks up so he can feel the doorknob up his ass.
A conundrum. HELP!
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