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The Washington Post
May 6, 2005
Chick Flick Boyfriends: Guys Gone Mild
by Amy Argetsinger
Pay no heed to what your whiny women friends say: The perfect guy is
quite easy to find these days--at least in the movies.
He's gazing soulfully at Debra Messing. He's murmuring sweet
encouragement to Sandra Bullock. He's wrinkling his brow, adorably,
at the antics of Drew Barrymore. He's sweeping Julia Roberts around
the dance floor.
Now here he comes again, in a gold-lit haze, jogging shirtless on the
beach past Jennifer Lopez in her new film, "Monster-in-Law." We will
soon learn that this vision of manliness is single, a successful
doctor and...
Well, that's about it, really. Did you need more? Look, there's Jane
Fonda! Doesn't she look great? How much longer till she and J.Lo
start catfighting? Bring on the main event!
For years actresses complained about getting stuck in the generic
supporting role of The Girl--the lady scientist who spars with the
hero before melting into his arms, the radiant young wife who coos
supportively to the cop before her murder propels him into a
bloodbath of vigilantism.
But amid a renaissance of female-dominated films, and at a time when
more than a dozen actresses command $10 million or more for a movie,
there's a new archetype on the screen--and this time the cardboard-
cutout character is The Guy.
You can't have a chick flick, after all, without someone for the
Chick to pine for, or banter with, or flee from the villains with, or
bid farewell from her deathbed. Now a whole cadre of actors
specialize in meeting the elusive demands of this particular role. Or
at least we keep seeing the same guys play The Guy over and over
again.
So for the handsome doctor caught between mom Fonda and fiancee
Lopez, producers tapped Michael Vartan, who played Barrymore's
boyfriend in "Never Been Kissed" before he was Jennifer Garner's
honey on TV's "Alias." But they might just as easily have cast
Benjamin Bratt, who was Bullock's sparring partner in "Miss
Congeniality," Halle Berry's boo in "Catwoman" and Madonna's sweetie
in "Next Best Thing." Or Goran Visnjic, suitor to Bullock
in "Practical Magic" and Heather Graham in "Committed" and Garner
in "Elektra." Or John Corbett, whose yeomanly fulfillment of
boyfriend duties on TV's "Sex and the City" earned him not just the
right to play Kate Hudson's gentleman caller in "Raising Helen" but
perhaps the quintessential Guy (handsome, inoffensive, looks good in
a tux) of our times--the groom in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."
Remember that Guy? Remember him? Yeah, didn't think so.
Perhaps the hardest-working boyfriend in the biz is Dermot Mulroney.
The Alexandria, Va., native is a veteran actor who has done standout
work in many well-respected movies you never saw. In the ones you did
see--the big studio ones--he played The Guy.
He may even have pioneered the role as we know it. He was the sweet,
dorky photographer whom Bridget Fonda couldn't tell about her job as
a government assassin in "Point of No Return." The stable, loving
fiance that Winona Ryder felt very guilty about cheating on in "How
to Make an American Quilt." The mysterious male escort that made
Messing swoon in "The Wedding Date." And in "My Best Friend's
Wedding"--arguably the defining chick flick of the past decade--he
was the sportswriter caught up in the clash of the titanesses that
was Julia Roberts vs. Cameron Diaz.
What is it about these Guys, and why do they always end up holding
the door while the Chick kickboxes or pratfalls her way into
America's heart?
In part, of course, it's because they can't all be Brad Pitt.
"For men in their thirties, there are the actors who had that big hit
that propelled them to the Tom Cruise level, and there are those who
are really talented but never got the break into international
markets," says Randi Hiller, a Los Angeles casting director who
rounded up the boys for the surfer girl epic "Blue Crush" and the
Kirsten Dunst vehicle "Crazy/Beautiful."
The hunger of overseas audiences for big-name stars increasingly
drives casting decisions for the vast majority of movies made
today. "The rest of these guys, no matter how talented they are, end
up with the next level of roles," Hiller says.
Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin, however, cites a grand
tradition going back to the 1930s, with handsome sub-stars like Ralph
Bellamy, Franchot Tone, John Loder--men who were capable of both
kissing Rosalind Russell and losing her to Cary Grant in the final
reel.
George Brent, co-star of classics including "Dark Victory"
and "Jezebel," was perhaps the preeminent screen boyfriend of the
era. "The strong leading ladies like Bette Davis liked having him as
their leading man because he wasn't threatening to them," says
Maltin, author of the new "Classic Movie Guide." The same principle
carries on today.
"You don't want someone so bland that you can't understand the
leading ladies' attraction," he says, "but you don't want someone so
dominant that they overshadow the star."
Another casting director holds a fonder view. It takes a very special
kind of guy, says Lisa Beach, to play the boyfriend. When
casting "The Sweetest Thing"--the first movie that earned Cameron
Diaz a $20 million paycheck--Beach looked at dozens of actors before
settling on Thomas Jane. (Who? Exactly.) "He had the right amount of
sweetness," Beach says. "... The actors who work in these boyfriend
roles have a quality that women respond to because women think they
can take care of them."
In other words, they represent what Hollywood suspects women
everywhere really want. What, then, do the movies tell us about the
perfect Guy?
- He is the consummate straight man. He may react in an adorably
bemused way to the antics of the heroine or her wacky friends, but he
does not deliver the punch line.
- He's experienced. No virgins or loners, please; he's had other
girlfriends, whom he tends to trot before the heroine in a well-
meaning way. But they turn out to be vapid, or duplicitously evil,
and he comes to recognize the error of his ways within 90 minutes.
- He is supportive and wise. He can deliver the piercing observation
that spurs the heroine to action or onto a path of self-improvement.
("No more trying to be someone I'm not!" weeps Reese Witherspoon
in "Legally Blonde," and Luke Wilson says, "What if you're trying to
be someone you are?") Yet his own character may never develop beyond
his growing recognition of how wonderful the heroine truly is.
- He may occasionally throw a punch or two--in her defense, of
course. But he never really kicks anyone's butt.
Finally, he doesn't have a whole lot of--how can we put this?--
edge. Edge apparently makes for a bad boyfriend. Consider the
brothers Wilson. With his sweet, earnest squint, Luke has logged time
as on-screen boyfriend to Barrymore ("Home Fries") and Diaz
("Charlie's Angels") and Witherspoon. Whereas his brother Owen zoomed
straight to action and comedic leads without ever playing a
boyfriend, his stoner drawl, bar-fight nose and willfully bad haircut
sending a strong subliminal message to the women of America: not
relationship material.
But, ahhh, Michael Vartan. "I would have agreed to anything to get
you to move in here," he murmurs to Lopez. His shirt is back on at
this point. But the soulful gaze, the crinkly smile--they never
waver.
"This isn't my world anymore," he tells her when she's humiliated in
front of his mother's hoity-toity friends. "You're my world." He is,
indeed, perfect.
Pity they don't put him in any of the interesting scenes.
© The Washington Post 2005
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