A Year of Rom-Coms #60: The Proposal
Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Tolerate Ryan Reynolds
This week, I’m taking it way back and writing a post in the style of my old Tumblr, A Year of Rom-Coms. I’m keeping the format the same as it was back then, but this time I’m older, wiser (debatable), and significantly crankier.
IMBD plot summary: A pushy boss forces her young assistant to marry her in order to keep her visa status in the U.S. and avoid deportation to Canada.
Is this an accurate plot summary? You know, I remember making fun of how bad the IMBD plot summaries were, but this one’s fine. It’s getting the job done! Was I just too critical back then? Did I not have real problems? Did I have to take out all my aggression on IMDB?
In 2015, I started a project called A Year of Rom-Coms, which was exactly what it sounds like: I watched 52 rom-coms over the course of a year. It’s hard for me to express what that project meant to me, both personally and professionally. I connected with so many amazing people through that Tumblr, many of whom I’m still friends with today. And, of course, everything I learned (Absorbed? Realized?) by watching 52 romantic comedies and really analyzing what worked and what didn’t ended up turning into Waiting for Tom Hanks, which is far and away my most popular book. I’m not even sure I would currently have a novel writing career if I didn’t write that book!
After the year was over, I updated the Tumblr very occasionally (when I had THOUGHTS that I simply HAD to share!), but eventually stopped. I don’t know what’s going on over there now. Tumbleweeds (tumblrweeds?) are rolling through the posts, presumably. It’s not that I don’t still love rom-coms, but there’s only so many times you can go back to the same well. I had a blog and two books that are very meta commentaries on rom-coms. For my books now, I have a rule that I’m not allowed to use the words “romantic comedy” together, even though I’m very much writing romantic comedies.
But I’m still watching them, even if I’m not writing posts about them. Honestly, though, I’m pickier than I once was. Once you watch 52 of something, you tend to have a lot less patience for the duds. And a well-made rom-com can be anywhere, at any budget. I’ve seen good Hallmark movies and good Netflix movies, as well as abysmal big studio productions.
That being said…a budget sure does help. The Proposal came out in 2009, certainly past the golden age of rom-coms, but when it was still normal for a big-budget rom-com with actually famous actors to play in theaters. This specific kind of romantic comedy—largely sweet, a little bit bawdy because we were living in a Judd Apatow world of gross-out, male-centric romantic comedies (I’m worried this sounds like a criticism instead of a simple observation, so please note that I like those movies, but their remarkability was largely due to the fact that they were men’s movies with romance, which made them stand out in a genre that had been fully marketed toward women for years), softened edges instead of the sharpened points of an Ephron-penned script—was, although we didn’t know it at the time, the genre’s dying gasp.
I know we all want rom-coms to come back. I’m right there with you. But no matter how often we use the word “romcomaissance,” that doesn’t change the fact that Netflix has mostly transitioned to making their own version of Hallmark movies and our cinemas are dominated by IP action films. I don’t say that with any judgment! I like many of those Netflix rom-coms (and frankly would love it if one of my books was made into one of those Netflix rom-coms, just putting it out there!), and just because I personally am not capable of sitting through any action film without falling asleep doesn’t mean I can’t understand why other people like them. But the romantic comedies? They aren’t there. The fact that two rom-coms came out over Valentine’s Day weekend (only one of which was that big, glossy kind we’re talking about here) doesn’t mean they’re back, baby.
But I’ve gotten way off track here. We’re supposed to be talking about The Proposal, a modern classic that I somehow didn’t see when it came out! Probably because I was busy being depressed and working in a factory in 2009.
I decided to watch this one when my mom, who famously never watches a movie without falling asleep or giving up/leaving the room, texted me that she’d watched The Proposal on TV. “I think you’d like it,” she said, and I figured if it was good enough to stop my mom from switching to one of her upsetting reality shows about a veterinary office, then it was good enough for me. So I watched it on Freeform, where it was occasionally interrupted by commercials and edited for length and content. You know, the ideal way to watch a movie.
The real reason I hadn’t watched this movie before 2022 probably boils down to my deep distaste for Ryan Reynolds. I don’t like any of his phases…young and smarmy, slightly older and smarmy, etc. Although I loved Definitely Maybe, I’m not a fan of his. In The Reveal’s negative review of his new film The Adam Project, Scott Tobias described him this way: “Not caring is his personal brand, the air of self-amused disaffection that he introduced in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder 20 years ago and has cultivated in nearly every film since. He quips away until called upon to show a little earnestness, and that’s when his limitations are exposed. There’s only so much that he can fake.”
I simply am not looking for a romance hero with “self-amused disaffection,” thank you very much! But luckily, Sandra Bullock is more than capable of carrying this movie on her overworked, uptight shoulders.
You probably know the premise, but just in case: Sandy is a big-shot editor, walking around NYC while yelling into her phone about getting her client to go on Oprah (side note: are there any other rom-coms that name drop Don DeLillo and Philip Roth?). Ryan Reynolds is her overworked assistant. When she’s about to get deported to Canada, she strong-arms him into marrying her so she can stay in the country and keep yelling into her phone about books. But first…she has to travel with him to Alaska to meet his entire family and share a bedroom!
For me, this is what I imagine watching sports is like for people who are really into sports. I’m screaming at the television, I’m jumping off the couch, I’m cheering because my team just scored the winning touchdown. Except in this case, my team is the general concept of love.
As you might imagine, Sandy ends up realizing that there’s more to life than work. Namely, living in a small Alaskan town and having a family that’s mostly lovable. She comes to this realization through a series of wacky events, including but not limited to:
-A dangerous boat ride that leads to a dangerously emotional cuddle
-One of those situations where they’re forced to kiss because a group of people are watching them but then they’re like, “Oh no, that kiss was too good” (we’ve all been there)
-Running into each other naked (again, who among us hasn’t tried to find a towel and run into a sweaty Ryan Reynolds)
-Many hijinks involving a dog
-Sandy trying on Betty White’s wedding dress and realizing that she really does want to be part of a big, loving family because hers is, as is required for a Sandra Bullock rom-com, very dead.
-Emotional conversations with Ryan Reynolds while he tries to sleep on the floor.
-Some sort of Alaskan dance with Betty White that makes sense because I guess Betty White is supposed to be a native Alaskan? I wasn’t totally sure about the details here. Part of this is due to the fact that I was watching it on Freeform. When Sandy started singing “Get Low,” at first I was like, “Wow, it’s kinda sweet that she’s censoring out the profanity for Betty White’s benefit” and then I remembered that I was watching an edited-for-TV version. I just watched the unedited version and it actually is funnier when you can hear Sandy say “’til the sweat drop down my balls” instead of “’til the sweat drop down my *unintelligible guttural noise*.” Looking up the lyrics of that song, after not hearing it for years, was a real ride for me. To the windows to the wall, indeed.
Despite my aversion toward Ryan Reynolds and my disbelief that a woman of Sandy’s caliber would fall for him, I have to admit: I fell for this movie. I cried. More than once. When Sandy talked about how she loved being around a family? Tears! Here are two things that I think make The Proposal work:
-A budget. Listen, I get it. Even Nancy Meyers herself, the queen of the cozy rom-com, doesn’t get the budget she once did. But nothing makes me more depressed when watching a movie than realizing that they cut every corner they could. I don’t mean indie movies that are supposed to be low-budget, but when I watch a studio rom-com I want it to look and sound a certain way! It needs to be cozy! It needs to feel expansive! You have to feel like you’re in the world the characters are in, not that you’re looking at what is clearly a staged Vancouver home. This movie may not be filmed in Alaska, but it feels close enough. It feels like they had enough money to make the movie they wanted to make, and that’s not something I see happening too often these days.
-Good actors. This movie is good because Sandy is good, full stop. Craig T. Nelson knows how to play a disapproving dad. Mary Steenburgen can play the hell out of a supportive but confused mom. Betty White can steal a scene. These people know what they’re doing!
In short, much like how Sandy and Ryan Reynolds initially hated each other but then grew to love each other, I grew to love this movie. We shared a bedroom, we had a treacherous boat ride, and through it all…I realized that it really was there for me all along. I still will not watch a Ryan Reynolds project unless I’m absolutely forced to (the other night, my husband watched Free Guy without me and then said, “You wouldn’t have liked it…it had action and Ryan Reynolds”), but I do wish him the absolute best. If our girl Sandy can fall in love with him, I can at least tolerate him.
Stray thoughts:
-This is, strangely, the second Sandy movie in which she decides not to get married while standing at the altar. Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer says it best:
-In the 2000s, Malin Akerman really made a whole career out of being the “wrong” girl, didn’t she? 27 Dresses, in which she was a bad sister! The Proposal, in which she’s a sad, lonely former girlfriend! The regrettable remake of The Heartbreak Kid, which I didn’t see because if Charles Grodin’s not the lead, I’m not interested!
-IMDB tells me that Julia Roberts turned down Sandy’s role. Can you imagine? Could she have convincingly faked falling in love with Ryan Reynolds? You know I love her, but I’m having a hard time picturing it. I think it still would’ve been a good movie, but I can’t imagine her singing a Lil Jon song.
-Another IMDB trivia detail: “As Margaret grows progressively warmer throughout the film her hairstyle goes from a slick ponytail to being completely down and soft.” God bless you, rom-coms, for your extremely obvious and basic hair symbolism. Ponytails are for uptight bitches!!
Romantic comedy cliches: Just one bed(room), fake relationship, stopping a wedding at the altar, a perfect former girlfriend, pets causin’ problems, uptight ponytails, a city lady who can’t function outside of the city, a sassy grandma, a disapproving dad
Is this a good movie? Yes.
Did I like this movie? I absolutely did.
Would I watch this movie again? I sure will. Maybe even an unedited version next time!
Did this movie make me believe in love? If I can buy Sandy falling in love with Ryan Reynolds, I can believe in anything.
I can’t let this week’s newsletter go by without mentioning the death of William Hurt. You know how I feel about his work (strongly pro). A lot of people are just reading about his abusive relationship with Marlee Matlin, and although it surprises me that this is new information for some, I realize that not everyone read every single available resource about William Hurt last year after becoming inexplicably obsessed with him. It’s a weird feeling to love the work of someone who did something bad. This tweet kinda sums it up for me.
Anyway, I never want to make anyone feel bad here, and part of that involves not defending an abuser, so I won’t. I don’t know how any of us draws the line between art and artist, and I have no real reasoning behind why there are some people whose work I never want to see again while I’ll watch Children of a Lesser God any day, any time. I will say that, in recent years, I’ve released myself from the responsibility of making a pronouncement on the bad behavior of famous men I don’t know. Frankly, I’ve spent enough time trying to figure out how I feel about the bad behavior of men I know in real life. But I do love William Hurt’s performances, specifically in Broadcast News, The Big Chill, Body Heat, and my beloved Children of a Lesser God.
I hope to be back next week, but someone has a lot of work on her plate (someone is me!), so we’ll see. I’m planning on dedicating an upcoming newsletter to YOUR questions, because I do that sometimes on Instagram and it’s always really fun! So feel free to reply to this and, as they say on Reddit, ask me anything about movies, books, writing, work, whatever. See you soon.
I'd love to know your thoughts on the movie Dan in Real Life.
I read Things Jolie Needs to Do last year and really loved it! Jolie and Derek, ah!! So here's a related question for a future newsletter: Who are some of your favorite literary love interests?