Ghosted and Action Rom-Coms are not Knight and Day
Too many good things isn’t what life is
I knew Ghosted was going to deeply disappoint me and yet I couldn’t wait to watch it. Not because I’m someone who likes to hate watch things. I’m not. I love action movies which it appeared to be. I like Ana De Armas and I thought Chris Evans made a pretty appealing Captain America. And truth be told, I like Deadpool (same writers). I’m low brow enough and the ingredients were all attractive enough that it made sense for me to want to see it. And yet I was almost positive I would find it unsatisfying. And I was right. It wasn’t as good as The Lost City, which wasn’t amazing, but it gave us Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum beating each other into submission with their charming flaws. Ghosted even fell short of the delightful incredulity of Shotgun Wedding clearing space for J. Lo to look both stunning and stupid while sort of calling the audience idiots for trying to guess how old the movie wanted us to think she was. The movie felt like a magician roasting me for looking dumbfounded by their slight of hand. But Ghosted is like a soggy mop wearing glasses getting pushed along a gymnasium. There’s sort of something entertaining about it, though I’m not sure what it is. And it’s certainly not what I want from a movie and yet it’s exactly what I knew the movie was going to be. That’s because action rom-coms are a persistent flavor in the Hollywood system. The Princess Bride, True Lies, Knight and Day, The Spy Who Dumped Me, This Means War, Bird on a Wire, The Killers, American Ultra, The Bounty Hunter, Date Night, Love Birds, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, Romancing the Stone, just to name the ones off the top of my head and refusing to internet search for any more. When you consider the failure rate of this genre, it’s a little astounding they keep getting made, keep getting big stars attached, and they are almost always tuned to the exact same underwhelming pitch and disappointing frequency. They consistently have the lowest ceiling and the highest anticipation. I’m sure there’s a German word for it. Should-be-good-couldn’t-be-wurst.
I know shit about show business, but I’m fairly certain these movies keep getting made because on the page they seem like a lot of fun to make. A couple frolics around, globe trots maybe, has witty banter, bones, takes down some bad guys, both actors get to be desirable and often they get to be bad ass at something either throughout the movie or they steadily improve as the movie goes along. These roles are like catnip for actors. Look at American Ultra or Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Of course Kristen Stewart and Brad Pitt want to be in movies like that. Uggos want to be in movies like that. It’s a law of nature that good looking people improve their surroundings, but good looking people are still people. And people want to look good. Action rom-coms are the triple threat - action, romance, and comedy. For anyone who has ever been a kid, being athletic, falling in love, or being funny has at least vacationed in the frontal cortex if not laid down roots there. Actors evolve into wanting to portray Travis Bickle but they all start out wanting to be James Bond.
Actors sign up for these movies even when they’re garbage for the same reason I buy a ticket. I want to be seduced into thinking that it’s possible I’m not actually a buffoon who actually peed all over his shorts yesterday, but a babe magnet of untapped potential capable of saving the day. The characters in these movies have the difficult task of juggling a fairy tale love story with stopping the world from exploding all while looking good naked and acrobatically kicking the shit out of a half dozen thugs usually in a bathroom or moving car. Meanwhile, I’d set fire to the National Parks for the hair on back to stop growing. A week ago, I fell down my stairs carrying a pizza box and smashed my face into a Hawaiian pie. I don’t want my life. I want their life. The anticipation I have is to watch a little crinkly larvae metamorpihize into a monarch with pecs and a license to day drink and beat people up. And therein lies the problem. Ghosted and it’s ilk claim to be action rom-coms, but they are neither action, nor romance, nor comedy. They’re sci-fi fantasy with genie magic.
The tone of these movies is the same because to attract audiences they have to attract A+ talent and to do that the characters have to have it all and that song only comes in one note. These movies always start with a recognizable situation. Our protagonist is down on their luck or has fallen into a rut. We’ve all been there. They’re alone too. A box we can all check. Even if they’re in a relationship, they feel separated from their partner. Then they meet someone. Relatable enough. This person annoys them, but is undeniably attractive. I mean sure, but it’s not something I’m eager to be reminded of or fantasize about. It’s then revealed that that person is a magnet for chaos. If this happens in real life, you either bail or more likely will look back months into the relationship wishing you had bailed. Few of us are our best selves all the time and as we are susceptible to charm and intrigue and possibly the influence of cinematic storytelling tropes, we go along for the ride only to vomit all over ourselves. It’s here where the movie cruises and the wheels of our own life fall off. In the movies the characters find out they need each other and they make each other better and they also save the day. That’s too many good things. In life, holding onto a stick of dynamite doesn’t make things better. Your life gets blown up or at the very least you singe your eyebrows. You don’t make each other better. In real life you save the day by preserving your future and walking away. That’s the win. Or maybe you find your soulmate but not through being really good and somehow also rebellious at your job. There’s nothing super sexy in securing a promotion that comes with sick leave. These movies give the characters everything we as little citizens want and it feels insulting. They’re rubbing our nose in life’s inevitable disappointments and making us feel as if we’re to blame. It’s not escapism. It’s taunting us with the impossible. When a movie starts with a rock bottom, I can relate. But as the characters rise up to defeat the villain, get the happily ever after, and achieve enlightenment, I can no longer see myself because I’m standing in the dust they left me in. They’re having their cake and eating it too, and I’m stuck chewing on shoe leather.
So what of the ones that work? Well The Princess Bride is a literal fairy tale with a small boy piping up every time things get too implausible. It’s a narrative device that reminds us that yes this is bullshit, but it’s designed to make you feel better when you’re sick. Also the love at the beginning is too good to be relatable. A handsome farmhand whose only words are “as you wish.” Doesn’t leave much to wish for. In Romancing the Stone, neither character is made better by the other. They both choose self-interest before choosing love. It was also written by a woman waitressing in Malibu who wrote her fantasy into a screenplay that made her rich enough to buy a Porsche which she was riding in when it crashed and killed her. Sooo, there’s that. The Spy Who Dumped Me didn’t work commercially, but it’s actually pretty great. The problem is they tried to market a best friend movie as a rom-com. True Lies is guilty of all the tropes I mentioned. Starts with characters in a rut, a married couple this time, who rekindle their love through stopping terrorists. It should not work, but because it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, it does. Sure he’s living in a sexless, loveless marriage which is supposed to be the relatable hook for our super spy, but Arnold has never been relatable. The fun was watching him try to be anything close to domestic. Arnold’s appeal is that he’s barely human. He came on the scene as Mr. Universe. He’s best known for playing robots from the future, an alien killer, a pregnant man, and a twin to Danny Devito. We watch Arnold not to relate to him, but to watch him try to relate to humans. When California elected him governor it was liking watching cows volunteer to live under a farmer.
Then there’s Knight and Day. I have a long running joke with my friends and that joke is that I must be joking when I claim to like the Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz movie Knight and Day. I am not joking. I think it’s good. I think the criticisms that Cruise and Diaz don’t have chemistry is the point. Someone running around killing people is not attractive. Even if it’s a government job or a rebellion against a government job. It’s disturbing behavior. Knight and Day doesn’t succeed as an action rom-com. It succeeds because it’s as close as we’ll ever get to anything resembling a Tom Cruise (auto)biopic. It came out in 2010, right in the midst of everyone cancelling Cruise before cancelling someone was a thing. In the mid 2000s, he had manically jumped up and down on a couch (as if there’s a non-psycho way to do that), promoted Scientology, and came out aggressively against anti-depressants and psychiatry targeting Brooke Shields specifically for taking them when she suffered postpartum depression. Really ugly stuff. So in 2010, he made Knight and Day, a movie where he’s a disgraced secret agent whose agency smears him as being unstable and in his attempt to right this, he seems ever more unstable. I remember a friend pitching me on the movie saying Cruise was making fun of himself. Here was a guy attempting to dip his toe back into the public eye by being self-deprecating. But the more I watch it, the more I think Cruise isn’t making fun of himself. He’s being sincere. He should not be taken seriously, and yet it’s his earnestness that makes him compelling.
There’s a scene in K&D when Cameron Diaz’s character says she doesn’t feel safe with Cruise’s character. He takes this hard and pulls over the car they’re in. He gives this passionate speech, not dissimilar to the famous one in Jerry Maguire where he says “I’m not gonna do what everyone thinks I’m going to do and flip out,” and then he flips out. Except in this one he says “right now, out there, on your own, your life expectancy is like here,” and he puts his hand out at waist height, “with me, it’s here,” he moves his hand up above their heads, “without me,” he lowers it, “with me” he raises it. He does this a half dozen times. He’s upset about not being trusted when all he’s trying to do is his job. But it’s not his character who is upset with Cameron Diaz’ character. It’s Cruise who is upset with Hollywood. Without him, he thinks Hollywood is fucked. With him, movies will be the pinnacle of entertainment. A decade later Cruise would make this point again.
Recently a clip went viral of Steven Spielberg hugging Cruise and saying “you saved Hollywood’s ass. You might have saved the entire theatrical industry.” He said this because Cruise insisted on Top Gun: Maverick getting a theatrical release so they delayed it during the pandemic, and he fought the studio to make sure it didn’t go to streaming. When it was finally released a belated two years later, it won over global audiences and made a billion dollars.
Cruise is a nut bag, but he does love making entertaining movies and that really seems like all he ever wants to do to the point of making him seem unstable. I don’t think the public flogging changed his mind. I think it shut him up. He stopped trying to explain himself. He stopped trying to save the Cameron Diazes of the world and just went back to saving the day (box office).
What makes the movie work for me is that Cruise, the person, is squarely in the middle of one of life’s disappointments, and he is responsible for it, and he’s just trying to pick himself up and go on anyway with moderate degrees of success. I like that even if I’m not crazy about him. I might feel differently if the movie had been a hit. It would have been too many good things. The filmmakers didn’t make a successful action rom-com. They made an honest portrayal of a guy struggling to be charismatic as he does his job. Cruise’s character doesn’t change by the end. Neither does Cruise in real life. The character and the actor both almost kill themselves in their pursuit to save the day (box office). In the end, it’s Cameron Diaz’s character who rescues Cruise’s. Not because she has any real chemistry with him, which is good because he’s fucking daffy. But because when a lunatic will kill himself for other peoples joy, it’s hard not to show up for that. Knight and Day not succeeding despite Cruise’s relentless persistence makes the whole affair soothing. What it offered me was the reminder that none of us have it all. But some things are possible. Even enjoyable action rom-coms. I mean not in a minute. But I’ll keep hoping.