The only thing then that seems to be common to all examples of relationships that have good chemistry is that whatever it is, a lot of it happens surreptitiously. It seems to be something like the engine room of a ship; it’s completely below the surface, but the ship is going nowhere without it. Even if that ship looks like the QEII and is a really good actor.
So if this is the case – that there’s some kind of invisible point in which the important stuff starts to happen (it’s taking all my will-power not to put a test-tube reference in here, by the way) – then what can we say about what chemistry might be? What ingredients does it in fact take to make our Mento-in-the-Coke-bottle moments? The answer is….absolutely anything. From here on in, all bets are officially off. If the first section about all the usual rules for chemistry was the easy part, then what comes next is the fun part.
In 2009, Guy Ritchie played what was possibly his riskiest card to date when he unveiled his interpretation of Sherlock Holmes. Hot out of the Iron Man forge, Robert Downey Jr. was felt to be a fairly safe bet (provided he could do the British accent – he and Ritchie may as well have just set fire to Buckingham Palace if he hadn’t been able to do the British accent) to play a version of Holmes that emphasized the character’s eccentricities, combat capabilities, slightly manic energy and flagrant disregard for the law.
But what no one predicted was what was about to happen between him and Jude Law’s Dr. Watson. The films had all the appeal of Ritchie’s usual speed-manipulated sequences and sharp dialogue, but it was the thunderous rapport between his two male leads that reintroduced Sherlock Holmes to the world in a way that it could get back on board with. Ritchie has pushed the nature of the connection between his Holmes and Watson to the limits throughout the two films, most noticeably during an accidental sex simulation that occurs while the pair defend themselves from surrounding gunfire, complete with Holmes in drag (congratulations to the make-up and wardrobe departments are due here for finding a look for Downey Jr. that might finally be able to overshadow the embarrassment of his mug-shot) and in the distress that Watson’s marriage so clearly causes Holmes.
But Ritchie isn’t actually too far away from Conan Doyle’s original material; what Ritchie has done with his Holmes and Watson is perceive and draw out from the timeless pair the clear importance of the relationship between them. In Ritchie’s opinion, what Conan Doyle had clearly given him here – was a bromance.
‘Bromance’ (thanks again to the Bennifer culprits) is essentially code for ‘chemistry when it happens between men,’ and despite the relatively new term – and the sort of throat-clearing, back-slapping discomfort that is traditionally meant to define friendship for guys – the bromance has actually been around forever. From Laurel and Hardy and The Odd Couple, to The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, through the abundance of cop movies such as 48 Hours and Lethal Weapon and right up to I Love You Man and the recent Star Trek’s reinvigorated focus on the friendship between Spock and Kirk, the ‘buddy movie’ genre is probably as popular as romance, if not more, and for exactly the same reason; these relationships have unmistakable chemistry.
Not to be outdone, the girls have their equivalents: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café was nominated for two Academy Awards for the portrayal of a bond between two women and the majority of praise received by The Heat was due to the surprise strength of the dynamic between Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. There are of course many others. (The only problem with the girls’ relationships when compared to the boys’ is that the equivalent word would seem to be Sismance. Whoever these portmanteau geniuses are who have clearly worked overtime in the past few years, they need to sort that out pronto).