When I recently spoke with David Wain — the director of the uproarious new comedy They Came Together, which serves as a parody, a deconstruction, and a loving tribute to the romantic comedy — I couldn't resist beginning with a confession: "I really liked your movie. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that this film is a spoof of every romantic comedy I've ever seen in my life."
Without a missing beat, Wain replied, "That's right. We looked at your Netflix queue, and we were like, 'What's his list of movies he's seen?' and then decided to make a spoof of that."
It's the kind of quick-witted response you'd expect from Wain, whose career has bounced from one comedic gem to the next. From TV shows like The State and Stella, to movies like Wet Hot American Summer and Role Models, Wain has made a name for himself by writing and directing outlandish romps for more than 30 years.
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They Came Together is no exception; in fact, it may be Wain's crowning achievement. He insisted that he and co-writer Michael Showalter are poking fun at the genre not out of disdain, but with reverence. "The reason we made this movie is because, in truth, we are big, big fans of the romantic comedy."
"Showalter and I love the great romantic comedies," he said. "All the Woody Allen movies, The Graduate, When Harry Met Sally, John Hughes movies."
Unfortunately, the gems Wain speaks so affectionately about are in the past. For the last decade, the romantic-comedy genre has rapidly deteriorated, producing almost nothing resembling the fare that Wain was raised on (and that They Came Together consciously emulates). "They're so hard to make now because the formula is so entrenched," said Wain. "The good romantic comedies are either hybrids of other genres, or they find a way to be fresh with the formula." When asked to name recent romantic comedies he does admire, Wain identified Knocked Up, 500 Days of Summer, The Proposal, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist as quality outliers.
When it comes to the sharp, natural-sounding dialogue of his films, Wain provided a detailed outline of how much is improvised: "Wanderlust, which we did in collaboration with Judd Apatow, had a lot more free improv and exploring on set because we were just trying out that philosophy of working. We also had the time and the money to improvise a lot. A little bit less so on Role Models. And the lower budget movies — Wet Hot American Summer, The Ten, and They Came Together — had to be done so quickly that we had to mostly rely on what was on the page, allowing for improv where we could."
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Like his idol, Woody Allen, Wain has worked with the same general rotation of people in each of his five films. For They Came Together, Wain "begged" Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Christopher Meloni, and Michael Black — all of whom appeared in Wet Hot American Summer — to "reprise their roles from the stage reading they did at the 2012 San Francisco Sketch Fest for no money."
Fortunately, they agreed, and the results are just as potent. By spoofing the genre, They Came Together also manages to generate more laughs than any rom-com in recent memory. Despite the strength of the cast, pulling that off was a challenge; Wain explained that he and his team were "very brutal in the editing process," cutting everything "that didn't get big laughs."
Before Wain had to return to the set of Adult Swim's Childrens Hospital, I fired off one last question: "Do you ever consider making something other than a comedy?" In retrospect, it might have been flippant to suggest that Wain abandon the genre he's been working in for his entire career. But he responded, immediately and enthusiastically, in the affirmative: "I really have. I'd be very much interested in changing up the genre and exploring things that don't have to be, you know, jokes."
With They Came Together, Wain has managed to breathe new life into the tired romantic comedy genre. Who knows what he could do for the rest of them?
Sam Fragoso (@SamFragoso) is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Playboy, NPR, Grantland, and elsewhere. He's also the founder of Movie Mezzanine. A book of his interviews with emerging filmmakers, Talk Easy, will be published by The Critical Press in 2016.
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