Romantic Comedies have long been laughed at as formulaic, repetitive, and lazy. They dominated the film landscape throughout the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s. Audience’s are turning their attentions from rom-coms and seeking more dramatic films, including awards winning dramas and films like The Notebook. The charms of Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson’s chemistry has been left for the stoic gaze of Ryan Gosling.
Matthew McConaughey is a staple in Hollywood, and although he doesn’t star in romantic comedies any longer, ruled the genre for a time. The genre is dying, but in the early 2000s, McConaughey dominated with films like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Wedding Planner, Fool’s Gold, Failure to Launch, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It is a dying genre, but McConaughey says that it is a genre with its own set of challenges. He has since moved on to take more serious roles (Dallas Buyers Club, Mud), but McConaughey took a moment to tell The Guardian that rom-com’s overcome a challenge that most other films don’t encounter:
“They are thin, by design. You come in on a cloud and you skip from cloud to cloud, and if you drop anchor in a romantic comedy, you will sink the ship. If it’s a scene where boy meets girl and I get really mad for a second, uh-uh, cut. ‘You can’t get mad because we won’t believe you can make it back.’ That’s how it goes. No, no, no.
What’s easier about a drama is that: with every question, you can hang your hat on what would this character humanly do? You’re looking for reality all the time. You don’t go pining for reality in a rom-com. You’re supposed to stay up there and bounce.”
McConaughey has since left rom-coms for greener pastures like True Detective, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Wolf of Wall Street, and more recently Gold. He is gaining critical acclaim, which is something he rarely saw with rom-coms.
McConaughey’s current film, Gold, is in theaters now.
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