The Cyrano of it

Love triangles aren't always bad

Dear Writer,

Before we get into this week’s Cyrano movies, I want to do a full examination on why Cyrano is such a great set-up for a romantic comedy even though it’s built on a trope that people tend to hate; love triangles. If you’re a hater, I hope that this examination might change your mind, because there’s good stuff in the love triangle… you just have to do it right. And Cyrano is a template built to do just that.

All right. Let’s dive in, starting at the beginning with romantic conflict.

Romantic conflict

Romances require romantic conflict; a reason why these two people who are… ideally… really well-suited to each other can’t be together.

(Note: Romantic conflict is not the same as narrative conflict; in addition to the romantic conflict if you are building a romance, you still need an additional narrative conflict where a protagonist wants one thing and an antagonist wants a mutually exclusive thing in order for the story to work. Right now, I’m just talking about romantic conflict, the thing that keeps the couple from being together.)

Anyway, romantic conflict is always a problem because the conflict that’s keeping them apart has to be both strong enough to be a good, believable reason for them to be apart and ultimately resolvable so they can be together in the end. That’s not an easy needle to thread, and many writers end up traipsing into false conflict (misunderstandings, secrets and lies) which ends up being irritating for the reader who is shouting, “Just fucking talk to each other!”

Which is why many stories resort to love triangles; they are an easy way to insert some easy but resolvable romantic conflict; they can’t be together, because one of them is with someone else. It’s a solid conflict (when everyone involved is monogamous) because it’s both a problem and resolvable, if the person at the apex of the triangle is willing to take a chance.

Love Triangles

The problem with love triangles, and why I think they often fail, is because the typical thing to do is have the triangle apex (the person everyone wants) being with someone who is The Worst. This makes us cheer when they finally leave the jerk, but also… it makes us lose respect for the apex and because what the hell are they doing with that jerk in the first place? DUMP THEM DUMP THEM DUMP THEM. And when the apex finally chooses the pining love interest over the established love interest, it’s not as satisfying, because duh.

The other problem with love triangles is that, sometimes, the apex isn’t anything to write home about, either. They’re just an object for the pining and established love interests to fight over.

But let’s say you avoid all of this. All three people involved are great; it’s just that one of them is a better partner for the apex. That’s awesome… except when two of these three people we like are sniping at each other in conflict over this third person and it sucks. One of my favorite moments in The Good Place was when Tahani and Eleanor started this behavior and then Eleanor says, “No, we are not doing this,” and they end up braiding each other’s hair.

All of that said, I understand why love triangles make a lot of people roll their eyes, but in the end, love triangles are just a trope, and as we all know, tropes are neither good or bad; it’s how you use them.

Cyrano to the rescue

In case you haven’t yet watched this week’s movies, here are the basics: Cyrano movies involve one person writing love letters to the object of their affection, with the stated purpose of winning that person for a third person, who is typically better-looking than the letter-writer, but not as good a match for the person being wooed. It’s a classic love triangle, but with a magic twist making it work better than a lot of love triangles; it has romantic conflict and vulnerability baked right in to the set-up, so it almost always works.

And the great thing is; you have a relationship building between the pining and established love interests, and a great opportunity to tell another love story there, increasing your conflict, because the pining love interest doesn’t want to hurt the established love interest.

In addition, you’ve got an apex that doesn't know they’re in love with two people, and we know that when they find out, it is NOT going to be good for anyone involved. It’s a bit of secrets and lies, which is a conflict source I don’t love, but it works in Cyrano because there’s so much vulnerability involved in the motivation for the lie.

Roxanne (1987)

This was the movie that taught me about internal conflict as a legitimate source for central narrative conflict.

In this movie, the conflict isn’t… as one might suspect… between C.D. and Chris. Chris’s goal is to woo Roxanne, but nothing in that goal is blocking C.D. from doing the same. At no time is Chris trying to stop C.D. from gaining access to Roxanne; as a matter of face, Chris is encouraging that friendship, because it helps him woo her.

The thing blocking C.D. is himself; he’s too insecure about his looks to go after Roxanne herself, so instead, he lets himself get swept up in the fantasy romance between Roxanne and Chris, imagining Chris as a stand-in for himself. But when he does his job too well, he has to grapple with his own self-confidence in order to win her.

The only thing that would have made it better is if C.D. made the choice to tell Roxanne, rather than Dixie getting involved. If he got over himself and decided to put himself out there, only to be rejected by an angry Roxanne not because of his nose but because he lied, the emotional strings would have run a bit tighter, and we would have seen C.D. resolve his own internal conflict rather than rely on someone else to do it for him.

Besides that one minor nit-pick, this is one of my favorite movies. I like that Roxanne is more than just pretty; don’t get me wrong, they lean on “pretty” very hard, and they make her an actual rocket scientist to denote her intelligence rather than giving her a deeper characterization that has her just be smart, but she still held up as a character. And while there are moments that get a bit goofy, Steve Martin pulls off a lovely vulnerability with C.D. that is both fun and touching.

The Half of It (2020)

I’ve only seen this movie twice, but I love it.

For one, they take the complexity of the Cyrano set-up and fold in the fraught by bringing in queer love in a small town during high school. There are so many axes of vulnerability flying around, you’d think it would be too much.

But it’s not.

I especially love that the love story that is being built here is between the pining and established (or, establishing) love interests. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Aster. I love how she’s written, that she’s not just beautiful. I love the way she and Ellie develop their relationship in a playful way (the wall art project was just beautiful; I love a relationship built on people who work well together) and the way they just spark together. But Aster, while being the apex of the triangle, is not the main love story. The main love story (remember; not all love stories are romantic) was Ellie and Paul.

When I first saw Paul, I thought he was just another stupid dude, but he won me over as he won Ellie over. I loved that his passion for his taco sausage idea, and when he found the letters Ellie wrote for him to get him the job of his dreams (another soft spot of mine is the love story between a person and their work) I about cried with joy.

I loved Ellie and Aster as a couple, but I also liked that Aster wasn’t sure, and needed time. The way they left it at the end, with Ellie kissing Aster and saying, “See you in a couple of years,” was so romantic and wonderful and gave space for a future when Aster was ready.

In this movie, there were only two moments I didn’t care for that much.

The first was Paul’s saying, “You’re going to hell,” when he realized that Ellie was into Aster. I know it’s a small town, and these are religious people, but it made me think so much less of Paul. That said… I still think it kind of works. This is a response that many queer people have to face from people they love, and I felt a small fraction of the heartache and disappointment they must feel when they come out to someone who isn’t worthy of it. But Paul is young, and we watch him grapple and figure it out and turn it around. So for that, I think I almost like it, because I think it gives the audience a bit of insight into the smallest fraction of how devastating that must feel.

The second was the church scene. Everyone standing up and making big pronouncements in the middle of the church was a bit over the top for me in a movie composed of more subtle and realistic storytelling. That said, it was still a fun scene (I love when Paul’s mother is fine with him being gay, but not at all fine with him wanting to change the sausage recipe; I also liked Paul examining his response to Ellie and figuring out that he was wrong).

I would have preferred if Paul had written Ellie a letter that was just as clunky as the original one he had written for Aster, but heartfelt and with a full apology but those are pretty minor quibbles. This has quickly become one of my favorite movies, and I will go back to it. There is nothing I love more than a great love story.

That said, I always worry a bit that my straight perspective might cause me to miss issues with how a story portrays a queer experience, so I’m very open to feedback on this one; what did y’all think?

Okay - that’s it for this week! See you next week for our best friends love stories, Love & Basketball & To All The Boys I've Loved Before.

Everything,

L