Career Overview: Aline Brosh McKenna '89

Say what you will against sappy happy endings, but countless fictions have been spun for a reason: to satisfy a human need for imaginative romantic spectacle. In distilling the electric connections forged on subway platforms, in bookstores, and on planes into thrilling and syrupy sagas, romantic comedies serve up polished and less embarrassing versions of our own fantasies. Something about the hackneyed formula is inherently comforting: unbidden romantic feelings, untimely recognition of those feelings, operatic falling-outs — oftentimes on street curbs — and epic confessions of love. Happy endings by screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna ’89 are particularly satisfying in that they are both generous and understated. She has made a career of writing consistently heartwarming, women-centric comedies like “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006), “27 Dresses” (2008), and “Morning Glory” (2010). Her films amount to more than just simple retreads, as she both reprises and complicates beloved romantic comedy traditions through her clever dialogue and ambitious, uncompromising heroines.

In an interview with The Ringer, Brosh McKenna explained the motivation behind her gratifying endings, and how she seeks to resolve central non-romantic conflicts before throwing romantic fulfillment into the mix. “It would be like, trying to see if her life would work out…and a man, because there’s also a trope of leaving women in movies alone, just alone. I always wanted to show how those things can come together; they can inform each other. Figuring out your spiritual, personal journey can affect your romantic life and vice versa. But that’s not the endgame, because if we know anything of life, it’s not that you have that kiss and then everything’s perfect,” she said.

On the surface, “27 Dresses” might seem to promote misjudgments about women and their supposedly fatuous obsession with weddings. The hopeful romantic Jane (Katherine Heigl) does indeed marry her unexpected complement, the cynical, lovelorn journalist who betrays her trust (James Marsden), but the happy ending isn’t fantastically precipitated or defined only by their relationship arc. It is also contingent upon the self-reflection that Jane needs to break a routine of self-pity and quit her dead-end job. “I often had a lot of issues in development where I wanted to have a nontraditional ending to a romantic comedy. Like on ‘27 Dresses,’ I just did not want her to end up with anybody. I wanted her to end up becoming a more realized person,” Brosh McKenna said.

In her films, a fulfilling career is a woman’s lodestar. In “Morning Glory,” the energetic news producer Becky (Rachel McAdams) is unswervingly confident in her own abilities and in the future of the morning news show she is hired to revive. Her passion weathers defenses and inspires loyalty in those around her, even in the curmudgeonly news anchor (Harrison Ford) who grows to respect her creativity, later imparting wisdom he has gleaned from his own legendary career. In “The Devil Wears Prada,” as in “Morning Glory,” it is a precariously earned professional mentorship and not a romantic prospect that changes the female protagonist’s life. The brilliant and imperious magazine editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) earns our fear and admiration when she delivers acerbic and now hallowed one-liners such as, “Find me that piece of paper I had in my hand yesterday morning” and “Who is that sad little person?” Brosh McKenna’s 2011 film, “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” stars Sarah Jessica Parker, whose husband does much of the housework and the childrearing while she commutes between New York and Boston for work. She overworks herself and misses her son’s first haircut, but genuinely loves her job. In Brosh McKenna’s films, the camera doesn’t fixate pruriently on the woman herself, but instead romanticizes cityscapes, especially of New York, as if in salute to human enterprise. When Becky runs through Rockefeller Plaza under time pressure, the air practically crackles with possibility as she dashes by a gilded statue of Prometheus. It’s refreshing to see that Brosh McKenna’s young professional women throw themselves wholeheartedly into their work and later re-evaluate their lives thankfully not in grudging obligation to others, but in pursuit of personal happiness.

In 2015, Brosh McKenna took a different tack and co-created “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” with Rachel Bloom, who plays crazy ex-girlfriend Rebecca Bunch. Brosh McKenna explained her timely leap from feature films to television, citing the novelty-friendly and less sitcom-centric television landscape as conducive to her experimental project of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”: “There’s so much of girls tripping down stairs, saving kittens from windows and stuff in rom-coms to make them likable and protect them[...]Working on ‘Crazy Ex’ was the opposite of that,” she said. The show pointedly flies in the face of romantic comedy conventions, with funky original songs that are themselves send-ups of various artistic styles and genres. Instead of expressing Rebecca’s complicated mental state with dry expository dialogue, Bloom performs it. Some absurdist tunes could have you choking on your disbelieving laughter. Consider these lyrics from the “JAP [Jewish American Princess] Rap Battle” to get a better idea of Brosh McKenna’s punning prowess: “Our life lines have been parallel like corduroys / But now we’ll see whose bars will prevail / In this beef of two hard-as-nails Shebrews from Scarsdale!” In the black-and-white “Sexy French Depression,” Rebecca drawls, “Oi, je suis garbage” as she wallows melodramatically on a bathroom floor. It’s no wonder that Brosh McKenna’s playful wrangling with classic cultural heritage has rendered her own works veritable modern classics.

—Staff writer Claire N. Park can be reached claire.park@thecrimson.com.