Melancholy Longing
"Just Like Heaven" is the perfect romantic comedy.
John Podhoretz
September 26, 2005, Vol. 11, No. 02
THERE ARE THREE QUALITIES ESSENTIAL for any successful romantic comedy. First, it has to be amusing. Not screamingly funny, necessarily, but lighthearted and diverting enough to hold one's attention. Second, there have to be a few eccentric secondary characters who will provide jolts of unexpected life. Since the three-act storyline of a romantic comedy--boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl--has a foregone conclusion and provides no suspense, there's a limit to how surprising and interesting the main characters can be.
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