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| John Corbett carried out boyfriend duties in last year's "Raising Helen," with Kate Hudson.( - TOUCHSTONE PICTURES) |
Pay no heed to what your whiny women friends say: The perfect guy is quite easy to find these days -- at least in the movies.
He's gazing soulfully at Debra Messing. He's murmuring sweet encouragement to Sandra Bullock. He's wrinkling his brow, adorably, at the antics of Drew Barrymore. He's sweeping Julia Roberts around the dance floor.
Now here he comes again, in a gold-lit haze, jogging shirtless on the beach past Jennifer Lopez in her new film, "Monster-in-Law," which opens Friday in Washington. We will soon learn that this vision of manliness is single, a successful doctor, and . . .
Well, that's about it, really. Did you need more? Look, there's Jane Fonda! Doesn't she look great? How much longer till she and J. Lo start catfighting? Bring on the main event!
For years actresses complained about getting stuck in the generic supporting role of The Girl -- the lady scientist who spars with the hero before melting into his arms, the radiant young wife who coos supportively to the cop before her murder propels him into a bloodbath of vigilantism.
But amid a renaissance of female-dominated films, and at a time when more than a dozen actresses command $10 million or more for a movie, there's a new archetype on the screen -- and this time the cardboard-cutout character is The Guy.
You can't have a chick flick, after all, without someone for the Chick to pine for, or banter with, or flee from the villains with, or bid farewell from her deathbed. Now a whole cadre of actors specialize in meeting the elusive demands of this particular role. Or at least we keep seeing the same guys play The Guy over and over again.
So for the handsome doctor caught between mom Fonda and fiancee Lopez, producers tapped Michael Vartan, who played Barrymore's boyfriend in "Never Been Kissed" before he was Jennifer Garner's honey on TV's "Alias." But they might just as easily have cast Benjamin Bratt, who was Bullock's sparring partner in "Miss Congeniality," Halle Berry's boo in "Catwoman" and Madonna's sweetie in "Next Best Thing." Or Goran Visnjic, suitor to Bullock in "Practical Magic" and Heather Graham in "Committed" and Garner in "Elektra." Or John Corbett, whose yeomanly fulfillment of boyfriend duties on TV's "Sex and the City" earned him not just the right to play Kate Hudson's gentleman caller in "Raising Helen" but perhaps the quintessential Guy (handsome, inoffensive, looks good in a tux) of our times -- the groom in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."
Remember that Guy? Remember him? Yeah, didn't think so.
Perhaps the hardest-working boyfriend in the biz is Dermot Mulroney. The Alexandria native is a veteran actor who has done standout work in many well-respected movies you never saw. In the ones you did see -- the big studio ones -- he played The Guy.
He may even have pioneered the role as we know it. He was the sweet, dorky photographer whom Bridget Fonda couldn't tell about her job as a government assassin in "Point of No Return." The stable, loving fiance that Winona Ryder felt very guilty about cheating on in "How to Make an American Quilt." The mysterious male escort that made Messing swoon in "The Wedding Date." And in "My Best Friend's Wedding" -- arguably the defining chick flick of the past decade -- he was the square-jawed sportswriter caught up in the historic clash of the titanesses that was Julia Roberts vs. Cameron Diaz.
Now you remember. He was that Guy.
