(Well, that‘s one way to get the office talkin‘)
CAST: Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Craig T. Nelson, Mary Steenburgen, Betty White, Malin Akerman, Denis O‘Hare.
DIRECTOR: Anne Fletcher
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and one rather extreme version of an arranged marriage - straight ahead…
Ah, the life of an aspiring screenwriter… Is there a more awful form of torture? I’m thinking, no. Let’s count all the levels on which that particular existence sucks donkey balls. Ready? Here we go: (1) you spend most of your available time writing, with just enough hours left over to watch a soccer game, go diving, or slam back a few with friends during happy hour; (2) you have to deal with over-competitive, paranoid peers who are convinced you are out to steal their ideas when you have enough of your own; (3) even if you are somehow lucky enough to catch lightning-in-a-bottle and make a sale, your “vision” will likely get ass-fucked relentlessly until it no longer resembles anything you would ever deign to write; and, last but not certainly the least: (4) no matter how brilliant or original you think your idea is, you can bet your ass that someone else already has a similar concept already in production, basically ensuring you wasted countless hours on your project.
So, it was a great load off my shoulders when I made the decision to walk away from screenwriting in January 2010. Life’s just too damn short, and boy what a difference that made. I felt like I was reborn, and finally given the freedom to more actively pursue my other passions. I know a lot of other friends who are still in the screenwriting game, and I wish them well. I have no doubt they’ll eventually make it. And they deserve to, given the crap they have to put up with. Out of all the bullshit enumerated above, the most grating (to me, anyway) is # 4: putting a lot of work into something, only to discover that someone else already has the very same idea, ready to roll.
In our review for BASIC INSTINCT (review #83), we talked about how I wrote a script called STILETTO when I was just a teenager. It was about an New York City homicide detective who finds himself attracted to the beautiful prime suspect in a serial murder case. The chick is a music video director/photographer whose three ex-boyfriends whom she kicked to the curb have all been murdered in the same fashion: tied to a bed and stabbed with a stiletto dagger. What’s worse is her photographs and videos echo certain elements of the murders - and they were taken waaaay before the crimes. The woman’s defense: “Would I kill all my exes in the same way as the models are posed in my photographs and videos? That would make no sense. I’d be incriminating myself since I’m the common link between them…”
Is she right? Is someone setting her up and using her work as a template? Is she actually the killer’s main target? Or is she the killer herself? And has come up with an ingenious way to make herself look innocent? Those are the questions the cop must try to answer, as he finds himself falling in love with her against his will. Will he wind up the next victim? Or will he solve the mystery before then? Or will he fall under the photographer’s spell and somehow become her accomplice? Let’s just say that someone crosses over to the dark side at the very end…
Anyhow, I was living in Asia at the time, and discovered that a script called BASIC INSTINCT has sold for a cool $3 million bucks. Penned by a veteran screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, the plot revolves around a San Francisco homicide detective who finds himself attracted to the beautiful prime suspect in a brutal murder of a retired rock-and-roll star with an ice-pick. The chick is a novelist with a background in psychology who was dating the murder victim. What’s worse is the murder follows the same description of a murder in one of her novels - which was published waaay before the crime. Her defense: “Would I write a book about killing and then kill someone exactly as I described in my book? I’d be announcing myself as the killer. That would be stupid.”
Hmmmmmmm…. As you can see BASIC INSTINCT and STILETTO bore many resemblances. But, sadly, this kind of thing happens all the time in Hollywood. I have no doubt that Joe Eszterhas was working from his own original idea, just as I was working from my own. There is simply no way we could’ve known about each other’s scripts. Me, being a nobody, and he, being a top screenwriter. When I found out what BASIC INSTINCT was all about, I was understandably pissed off because I thought I had an original idea. Turns out someone else on the other side of the world had beaten me to it. More power to him.
And when I finally saw BASIC INSTINCT, it was almost exactly the way I envisioned STILETTO (with the exception of the prime suspect being raven-haired, not blonde like Sharon Stone), all the way to the dark, ambiguous ending. I liked the movie a lot. And then I promptly buried STILETTO and tried to forget about it. In other words: whatever.
But I’m not the only in my circle this whammy has happened to. There’s also the comedy script a writer/director friend of mine wrote called SWITCHING TEAMS, in which two executives in a company have to fake a marriage so that one of them won’t get deported back to England. The problem? They’re both men. The Brit is a homophobic straight guy and the American is gay. The straight guy is so desperate not to be deported, he bribes the gay dude to marry him in a civil union to keep him from being booted out of the country. The problem is they hate each other, as you can imagine. On top of that, they have to deal with an INS investigator who is suspicious of their “union”. Then the craziest thing happens: amidst all that bickering and fighting and punching and trying to act like a married gay couple to satisfy the investigator and other people, they unexpectedly fall in love. Most unexpectedly for the straight guy. Hence, that title.
Sound familiar? SWITCHING TEAMS might as well be a gay version of the Sandra Bullock-Ryan Reynolds smash hit THE PROPOSAL. Take out the straight guy-gay dude angle and this is basically the same movie. Especially the trailer for THE PROPOSAL, which could be a preview for SWITCHING TEAMS, but with Bullock and Reynolds instead of, say, Daniel Craig and, well, me (my friend said he’d hired me as an actor if he could get independent financing for the project to keep costs low - that should‘ve been me and Daniel Craig pretend-kissing-then-for-real-kissing in front of the party in the trailer).
Anyhow, when my friend found out about THE PROPOSAL going into production in 2008, he basically did to SWITCHING TEAMS what I did to STILETTO when I found out about BASIC INSTINCT: used the script as a beer coaster, because that’s about all it was good for at that point - besides mulch, that is. Just another example of the conundrum that screenwriters face every day: what do you do when your “brilliant and original” idea is already green-lit by a studio with someone else’s name on it?
Answer: you cut your losses and slam back as many shots of Cuervo Gold as you can. Then you move on. That’s what I did with STILETTO. And that’s what my friend did with SWITCHING TEAMS. I guess I’ll have to wait longer for my movie debut.
In THE PROPOSAL, instead of a bickering British homophobe and American fruit, we have a bickering Canadian publishing executive (Sandra Bullock) and American executive assistant (Ryan Reynolds). Bullock is Margaret Tate, and she obviously graduated from the Miranda Priestly School of Ice Princess Leadership. Reynolds is Andrew Paxton, and he obviously graduated from the Andrea Sachs School of Mousy Wuss Assistanceship. In other words, Margaret makes his life a living hell - and he has no choice but to take it.
We know Margaret is kind of well, difficult, by the way Andrew messages everyone in the office when she arrives by saying: “The Witch Is On Her Broom.” Cue the entrance of our Ice Princess, and cue the ducking of the staff like she’s a tactical fission device heading for its target. Yes, folks. The only differences between Margaret and Miranda Priestley are: (1) Miranda is silver-haired, Margaret is brunette; and (2) well, that’s about it, really…
Just like Miranda and Andrea from THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, Andrew and Margaret pretty much have that kind of love/hate relationship that you know would led to some seriously hot sex if they let it. And that chance comes when the INS denies Margaret a visa, leading to the threat of deportation. Yes, folks… unless our Dragon Lady in Pumps can come up with a plan, her ass is headed back to the Land of French Fries Served With Cheese Curds And Gravy and Guys With Funny Hats On Horseback.
It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Margaret does have a plan. Too bad it’s a colossally fucked-up one. To wit, she contrives to do the following: (1) browbeat Andrew into marrying her to keep her from being deported; (2) bribe him with the chance to advance along the corporate ladder and get his novel published, and (3) force him to join her in trying to thwart a suspicious INS investigator (Denis O’Hare) who correctly surmises that there’s a greater chance of a homophobic straight British dude and an American gay guy falling in love than Margaret and Andrew ever hooking up.
And so off to Alaska our crafty “lovebirds” go to try to snowball Andrew’s family into thinking they’re actually a couple. But what happens when Mom and Dad (Craig T. Nelson, Mary Steenburgen) tell Margaret and Andrew that they should get married that weekend so that Grandma (Betty White) can witness it before she croaks? Will they go through with it? Or will they blow the whole act with their constant arguing? Or will all that sexual tension finally erupt and consume them and turn them into a real couple? What happens when that pesky INS investigator shows up in Alaska to check on our “lovebirds”? Will he ruin their plans? Or help them along somehow?
See for yourselves. But I still wish my friend’s script for SWITCHING TEAMS had beaten THE PROPOSAL to the multiplex. Just imagine: Daniel Craig and I bickering the hell out of each other for two hours before finally falling into the sack together. Let’s see that shit in 3-D!
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Okay, folks, it’s like this: THE PROPOSAL is a somewhat formulaic flick that would’ve been stale had it not been for two things: (1) the great chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, and (2) wonderful support from Betty White and the rest of the supporting cast.
We’ve seen this type of film before, even before SWITCHING TEAMS and THE PROPOSAL: two mismatched people meet, hate each other upon first sight, fight relentlessly, then gradually warm to each other, before finally being forced to admit the unthinkable: they’ve fallen in love. This concept has been going since IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT way back in the 1930s. They say that arguing and bickering is sometimes a sign of sexual tension and attraction, and that trope is certainly put to good use in THE PROPOSAL.
But there’s a fine line between timeless and tired, and THE PROPOSAL sidesteps the pitfall of being stale by highlighting the electric connection between its leads. Ryan Reynolds is approximately 13 years younger than Sandra Bullock, and it’s nice to see this kind of age difference between a leading man and a leading woman for a change. It’s just the right kind of age gap. The fact that Bullock is 13 years older than Reynolds actually works well for the story, as well as their interactions.
Margaret and Andrew’s relationship arc from hostile and combative, to reconciling and appreciative happens by degrees, and it’s a testament to Bullock and Reynold’s skills that it all seems reasonably fresh. Even though you know these two, as dictated by formula, will eventually fall for each other and see one another in a different light, you still enjoy the ride getting there.
In the end, THE PROPOSAL doesn’t go anywhere new. But the sheer star power and chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds makes you feel as if it does…
In closing, please groove to the tunes of Katy Perry's song "Hot N' Cold" from THE PROPOSAL. To my writer/director friend out there reading this: if it makes any difference, I think SWITCHING TEAMS would've been an even better flick. Thanks for thinking of me for the role of the American fruit. You know I can channel my inner Sandra Bullock like no one's business..."
