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Melancholy Longing

"Just Like Heaven" is the perfect romantic comedy.

Sep 26, 2005, Vol. 11, No. 02 • By JOHN PODHORETZ
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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.

Finally, and most surprising in light of the fact that the movie in question is a comedy, there must be a palpable undercurrent of melancholy. The lead characters in a romantic comedy must feel dissatisfied, must be aware that there is a gaping chasm in their lives, must feel themselves to be wounded and hollow. At the same time, they must be afflicted by a kind of reticence that makes them fear the chasm will never be filled.

That reticence, that lassitude, is what gives these movies their unique erotic charge. Every good romantic comedy features at least one scene in which the two lead characters are desperately hungry for each other, so hungry that the audience practically shouts out "Kiss her!" But for the characters themselves, it can't be that simple. If it were, there would be no movie. The impulsive act simply of shattering the invisible barrier between them, and giving in to their passion, seems impossible.

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