The Guide #242: Everyday Hollywood film comedies have faded but can they make a comeback?

In this week’s newsletter: As studios chase safer bets and streamers fail to deliver, the humble standalone comedy has been replaced by blockbusters that sprinkle jokes instead of delivering belly laughs

There was a striking moment during this week’s episode of The Rewatchables, the wildly popular film-recap podcast that I reach for when I’ve had my fill of history/football/glum current affairs pods. The episode was revisiting 90s comedy There’s Something About Mary, a film that in some ways holds up hilariously, and in others has aged about as well as a bottle of semi-skimmed on a summer’s day in Death Valley. As part of the episode, the podcast’s panel were going through their favourite comedy films by decade and were spoilt for choice – until, that is, they reached the 2020s, when they seemed to collectively draw a blank. “The Drama’s pretty funny …” one offered tentatively. Finally, host Bill Simmons cut through the umming, ahhing and awkward silence to get to the heart of the matter: “Do we have comedies any more? What happened to comedies?”

Yes, what did happen to comedies? Or rather, what happened to the “everyday” American comedies like There’s Something About Mary that once set up a permanent frat house residence in cinemas? You know the ones I mean: those that took a familiar real-world situation – teens trying to lose their virginity, a man clashing with his girlfriend’s dad, a maid of honour struggling to arrange a hen do, stunted adolescents refusing to fly the nest – and stretched them to absurd and lurid extremes. It’s a lineage that goes back almost half a century, to the days of Animal House (rowdy college students annoy the dean by throwing a massive rager).