There are no end of movies about the “nice guy” getting the girl, but nowadays Hollywood is showing us that he might not be so nice after all. It began last year with Nacho Vigalondo’s Colossal and the character Oscar, played by Jason Sudeikis. He’s the quintessential “nice guy” throughout the film until he doesn’t get his own way, at which point his inner monster – both figuratively and literally – comes out. And how many of us recognise that pattern of behaviour from real life? Everything’s sweetness and light until the man in question doesn’t get something he wants.
Likewise in Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane, Joshua Leonard’s David Strine thinks of himself as a “nice guy” when really he’s a violent stalker who has willingly misinterpreted the politeness of Claire Foy’s Sawyer Valentini as affection. There are plenty of women out there who have dealt with men like these, and while these characters might be on the more toxic end of the “nice guy” spectrum, their reasoning is pretty much the same as your average entitled male.
Niceness doesn’t come for free – it comes with a romantic expectation that a woman must go along with. Psychologist Robert Glover, author of No More Mr Nice Guy: A Proven Plan For Getting What You Want in Love, Sex and Life, makes this exact point. “Because most ‘nice’ guys believe they have kept their side of the contract, they often feel helpless and resentful when other people don’t keep their side of the contract. [The nice guy] is the man whose life seems so under control, until boom, one day he does something to destroy it all.”
That is a pretty apt description of what happens in the film adaptation of On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan’s novella. (Spoilers for those who haven’t read the book.) Set in 1962, On Chesil Beach centres on a newlywed couple whose marriage self-destructs after an awkward sexual encounter on their wedding night. It’s a slightly different version of the original 2007 text, but these changes have led to the creation of its own “nice guy” problem. And this “nice guy”’s problem is that he’s not getting any sex.
Edward and Florence are graduates who fall in love with each other. Throughout their courtship, shown through flashbacks, he is depicted as a genuinely “nice” guy, but unfortunately he values his own sexual gratification more than his wife’s feelings. Florence herself has an aversion to sex because of deep-seated issues made evident during the film, and even though she brings her own expectations to the bedroom, it’s her husband’s angry refusal to compromise that creates the terminal fissure in their relationship.
Of course, men at the time were expected to have this sort of sexual entitlement once they put a ring on it. Husbands subordinated wives, expected them to satisfy their sexual desires and used the institution of marriage to assert their patriarchal authority. But instead of allowing Edward to successfully play the patriarchy card, McEwan has Florence refusing to submit to his demands for marital sex. She instead tries to open up a dialogue with him in order for them both to get a satisfactory outcome, but Edward becomes angry, declines and inevitably suffers the consequences for his rash, misogynist actions.
This is the toxic nature of male entitlement – criticism of which has gained more traction in response to the #MeToo movement. Women are learning to raise their voices and to no longer accept the sort of attitude that, for centuries, has required them to put men’s feelings first and allow their sexual needs to take precedence over our own. Women are recognising that it’s not just men such as Harvey Weinstein who can cause harm, but the non-threatening guys whose ulterior motives are disguised by kind actions.
Unsane, Colossal and On Chesil Beach are films that refuse to allow male entitlement, especially sexual entitlement, to be normalised by society. Pop culture can play a pivotal role in changing attitudes – in giving women more autonomy on screen and men less power over them it shows people that things can change for the better. It certainly seems that there’s a reason why Edward, David and Oscar didn’t end up with the girls, and that’s because these filmmakers recognise that “nice guys”’s problematic actions shouldn’t be rewarded with a happy ending. Save those for the actual nice guys.
• Hanna Flint is a freelance writer and editor
