Todd Strauss-Schulson
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Filmography
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My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
Directed by P.J. Hogan
influenced Isn't It Romantic (2019)
Plot Characters Themes Visuals
A “My Best Friend’s Wedding” gag repeated in too many rom-coms to number almost works — “karaoke night.”
DeVine mostly gets to represent a schlubbier version of the stolid leading-man type – imagine Dermot Mulroney in My Best Friend’s Wedding – thus allowing Hemsworth to steal his scenes as the outrageously good-looking billionaire who can’t stop calling Natalie “beguiling”.
As a pseudo-reluctant example of yet another formulaic romantic comedy, “Isn’t It Romantic” features fewer montages than you might expect, but there’s one right about the first-act turning point in which jaded New York architect Natalie (Rebel Wilson) lays out all the reasons she hates movies like “The Wedding Singer” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
There are nods to "Pretty Woman," "27 Dresses," "My Best Friend's Wedding" and plenty more here, as well as the rom-com staple of the out-of-nowhere big group sing-along.
Be it Pretty Woman or My Best Friend's Wedding .
Long Island City now looks like Notting Hill, there are perfectly choreographed karaoke sequences straight out of “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and a total sexpot (Liam Hemsworth) is enamored with her.
Once, Natalie was a little girl who loved watching Pretty Woman and fantasizing about the romantic life she’d lead as an adult.
As a child, Natalie was a wide-eyed Pretty Woman fan with dreams of finding her Richard Gere.
The problem isn't rom-coms and the anti-empowerment dreams they hawk; it's the defeatist mantra that Natalie's mom (Jennifer Saunders) plants in her head, a reaction to the particular dream-hawking fantasies of Pretty Woman .
She’s dressed in “Pretty Woman” (post-makeover) wear, sent out into the street, where seagulls fly in heart-shaped flocks and “New York doesn’t smell like s–t any more!”
The movie constantly reminds us of superior rom-coms — everything from Pretty Woman to When Harry Met Sally to 500 Days of Summer — over the course of a sloppily written story that fails as both romance and comedy.
Ever since they achieved sentience in 1996, slasher movies have been trying to find new ways to be self-aware without just rehashing Wes Craven's Scream.
Though not quite as inspired or consistent as the similarly self-mocking likes of “The Cabin in the Woods,” “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil,” or the first two “Scream” pics, this is good fun that should delight genre fans.
Screenwriters Joshua John Miller & M.A. Fortin have come up with a twist on the meta-horror movie that gave us films like "Scream" and "The Cabin in the Woods."
Similar to the approach of 1996's " Scream " while going in an entirely new direction, the film's meta-savvy approach blurs the line between fiction and reality while nonetheless confronting the truths of the characters with heartfelt affection.
This is Scream at a lower decibel.
"Scream" meets "Pleasantville" in the new movie "The Final Girls," a playful deconstruction of the slasher film that ultimately packs a surprisingly affecting punch.
When she catches her friend (Betty Gilpin) watching a Notting Hill -type movie on her computer at the office, she snaps.
At barely 90-minutes the film is chockablock with references to rom-com classics like Pretty Woman and When Harry Met Sally , to newer features like 13 Going on 30 and Notting Hill that benefit rewatching to catch everything.
It knows these movies are pure formula, and it makes fun of that formula in myriad and amusing ways, including overt references to such predecessors as “Pretty Woman,” “Notting Hill” and “13 Going on 30.”
Along the way, we get nostalgic homages as Natalie grows up adoring “Pretty Woman” (1990), her co-worker religiously watches “The Wedding Singer” (1998) and her friends regularly reference “Notting Hill” (1999), “Sweet Home Alabama” (2002) and “13 Going on 30” (2004).
The film manages to pay tribute to/make gentle fun of films like “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “Notting Hill,” and “13 Going on 30” while folding in some female empowerment, too.
When her assistant (Betty Gilpin) watches Sweet Home Alabama at work, Natalie calls the movie a “masterpiece of shit.”
With a script by Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox and Katie Silberman, “Isn’t It Romantic” demonstrates a clear affection and deep knowledge of romcoms from “The Wedding Singer” to “Sweet Home Alabama,” but this love isn’t blind.
Along the way, we get nostalgic homages as Natalie grows up adoring “Pretty Woman” (1990), her co-worker religiously watches “The Wedding Singer” (1998) and her friends regularly reference “Notting Hill” (1999), “Sweet Home Alabama” (2002) and “13 Going on 30” (2004).
One day after work, Natalie’s mugged on the subway, and in the fracas, she bonks her head and wakes up in an amalgam of every 1980s and 1990s romantic comedy, from Pretty Woman to When Harry Met Sally…
The script — written by Erin Cardillo, with a strong rewrite by rom-com veterans Dana Fox (“What Happens in Vegas”) and Katie Silberman (“Set It Up”) — borrows heavily from “Pretty Woman” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” with references to “When Harry Met Sally…” and “Jerry Maguire,” among others, thrown in for good measure.
Writers Erin Cardillo and “How To Be Single’s” Dana Fox and Katie Silberman have fashioned a high concept romantic comedy that replaces the naive optimist of “Enchanted” in real world New York City with a cynic plunked into its glossiest Hollywood version.
Isn’t it Romantic es para la comedia romántica lo que la película Enchanted (2007) es para las películas sobre los cuentos de hadas y princesas de Disney.
The film has much in common with 1991’s Delirious , which saw a jaded writer get hit on the head, then wake up inside his soap opera, and Enchanted which winked at the romantic tropes of Disney movies and then subverted them.
Best-case scenario, “Isn’t It Romantic” would have been the reverse of “Enchanted,” wherein a Disney princess tried to adapt to the harsh reality of New York City — only here, a hardened cynic tries to wrap her head around a flash-sanitized version of the Big Apple, where someone has magically erased Manhattan’s distinctive rotting-garbage stench, and replaced the liquor stores and check-cashing joints in her neighborhood with cupcake cafés and bridal shops.
It may not break much new ground — its premise is another version of Amy Schumer’s “I Feel Pretty” (2018) with the magical realism of “Enchanted” (2007) — but it’s still an undeniably cute date movie.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Directed by Jim Gillespie
influenced The Final Girls (2015)
Characters
And this might be unintentional, but she gives off heavy Jennifer Love Hewitt vibes, circa “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
We know the type of movie this is referring too… Pretty Woman , She’s All That and The Proposal are all examples which spring to mind.
His sophomore feature is a sharp, wickedly funny, and unexpectedly heartfelt homage (co-written by Joshua John Miller, that amazingly creepy child actor so memorable in Near Dark and River’s Edge).
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Directed by Drew Goddard
influenced The Final Girls (2015), Isn't It Romantic (2019)
Themes Plot
As a meta work nestled in horror trappings, the film has already earned comparisons to Drew Goddard’s 2012 meta masterpiece The Cabin in the Woods, though frankly, The Final Girls feels closer to Joseph Kahn’s Detention in terms of its winking cheekiness.
It takes the "meta" approach of Scream and The Cabin in the Woods to the next level by placing the characters in the film inside another film populated by familiar tropes and stereotypes -- sort of like Pleasantville meets Friday the 13th.
Though not quite as inspired or consistent as the similarly self-mocking likes of “The Cabin in the Woods,” “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil,” or the first two “Scream” pics, this is good fun that should delight genre fans.
Screenwriters Joshua John Miller & M.A. Fortin have come up with a twist on the meta-horror movie that gave us films like "Scream" and "The Cabin in the Woods."
An antidote to the smugly clever The Cabin in the Woods , Todd Strauss-Schulson's film is built on personal trauma: Max's (Taissa Farmiga) loss of her mother, Amanda (Malin Akerman), who we see just before she's killed in a car accident, lamenting how her scream-queen stardom, cemented by the cheesy 1980s film Camp Bloodbath, has left her frustrated as a result of typecasting.
The basic premise of the film is in the same general meta-comedy mold as Drew Goddard’s The Cabin In The Woods , albeit a less imaginative version of the same.
Writers Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman try to revive the spoof genre that was all the rage more than a decade ago thanks to Scary Movie and Disaster Movie franchise.
It mostly escapes the failures of the silly “Scary Movie” franchises by recognizing that it is not enough to refer to something; you have to have something to say about it.
This is obviously his niche and there’s a cleverness that films like Scary Movie or Not Another Teen Movie lack.
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Directed by Donald Petrie
influenced Isn't It Romantic (2019)
Themes
And you don’t need to have memorized How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or 27 Dresses or 13 Going on 30 to know the score here.
In the century's first decade, when movies such as 27 Dresses and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days were as plentiful as roses in a Valentine's Day bouquet, Isn't It Romantic might have seemed like a bold corrective.
Contrast that with Brooks’ “Spaceballs,” where most of the jokes are broad slapstick and sight gags independent of “Star Wars.”
While they occasionally strain with overly polished musical numbers, the writer trio deserves credit for a laugh-out-loud sequence akin to “Groundhog Day” (1993) or “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014) that repeats the action of a towel-clad Hemsworth approaching Wilson’s bed in foreplay.
Freaky has many of the elements of horror comedies with staying power like The Guest and The Final Girls from references to beloved franchises to cat-and-mouse games during party scenes.
Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
Directed by Sharon Maguire
influenced Isn't It Romantic (2019)
Characters
In Isn’t It Romantic (opening ahead of this Valentine’s Day, but you can also watch Bridget Jones’s Diary drunk with me and my mom), Wilson, playing Natalie, a cynical slovenly architect, overlooked at work as well as by humanity except for the best friend who obviously loves her (Adam Devine).
I've seen 50 First Dates , My Best Friend's Wedding , and Bridget Jones's Diary more times than I'd like to admit.
The movie constantly reminds us of superior rom-coms — everything from Pretty Woman to When Harry Met Sally to 500 Days of Summer — over the course of a sloppily written story that fails as both romance and comedy.
If Wilson was behind the casting decision, then this is the smartest casting choice since Joseph Gordon-Levitt bringing in Scarlett Johansson for his Don Jon .
Writers Dana Fox ("Isn't It Romantic"), Tony McNamara ("The Favourite") and Aline Brosh McKenna ("The Devil Wears Prada") coalesce, bringing essential vibes from former projects into this one’s duality theme.
Co-screenwriter Dana Fox also penned Isn't It Romantic, but trades satirising one genre's tropes for leaning into another's (yes, villain origin stories are their own genre now).
In the script written by Dana Fox ( Isn’t It Romantic ) and Tony McNamara ( The Favourite ) from a story by Aline Brosh McKenna ( Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ), Kelly Marcel ( Venom: Let There Be Carnage ), and Steve Zissis ( Togetherness ), Cruella tries to adapt who the character is from the original Dodie Smith tale, the animated iteration, and the 1996 adaptation, creating a character that is confounding in being too menacing to root for yet too sweet to be hated.
Director Craig Gillespie gets to deconstruct the image of a pop culture villain as he did with I, Tonya , writer Tony McNamara gets to poke at the obscenity of the rich upper class a la The Favourite and The Great , and co-writer Dana Fox breaks out the same sense of pointed but ultimately light-hearted subversion that made Isn’t It Romantic watchable.
Once the two women are brought together, screenwriters Dana Fox (of Isn’t It Romantic) and Tony McNamara (of The Great and The Favourite) add in even more backstory then points these stylish women towards each other.
Fox wrote “Isn’t It Romantic” and McNamara wrote Yorgos Lanthimos’s brilliantly scathing “The Favourite.”