Romantic flicks that defy formula

There's a complex alchemy that makes up all intimate relationships, but to boil it down to basics, love, sex and marriage are the most crucial elements.

In film, those topics are explored in great detail, so much so that we’ve are become accustomed to the cliches of genre. But there’s no doubt that these kinds of films can be successful, and so they keep getting churned out year after year.

Every so often, you get a few that break the mold. What about this batch?

‘AWAY WE GO’

In the movies, marriage is often presented as an uber-serious topic (think depressing fare like “Revolutionary Road”) or a slapstick enterprise (“Bride Wars” comes to mind).

Ironically, it took a movie about a nonmarried couple, AWAY WE GO (R, ***), to present a refreshing treatment of the subject.

“Away” is a comedy, but not a laugh-out-loud one. No, it’s more of a comedy of manners, quirks and observations, all handled deftly by director Sam Mendes (who also did “Revolutionary Road”) and a solid cast.

Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are not married because of Verona’s feelings about the institution, but they are a loving couple about to have a child. They decide to move closer to Burt’s parents so their child can be close to family, but when Burt’s folks announce they are moving abroad right before their grandchild’s birth, it throws them for a loop.

So they decide to go on a road trip of sorts, to determine where they should raise their child. Along the way, they stop and meet with friends and family, most of whom are so grotesque you wonder why they were friends with those people in the first place.

Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney and Maggie Gyllenhaal all show up on Burt and Verona’s meandering road trip.

One of the criticisms of the film is that it’s too smug, and yes, there is a whiff of condescension as the movie presents Burt and Verona as above the people they visit, but it mostly paints the couple as loving.

Hipster heroes Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida wrote the screenplay, and it’s certainly imbued with their personalities – if you know them, you can almost picture them saying Burt and Vendela’s lines – but they’ve done a good job of creating an understated look at love and parenting.

Krasinski and Rudolph are so comfortable with each other, it almost feels like they are really married. Rudolph is a revelation, especially for those only familiar with her bombastic work on “Saturday Night Live.”

‘THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE’

Only Steven Soderbergh could take a movie about an escort and turn it into a treatise about the economy.

But that’s what’s happening with THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE (R, ***), which takes a salacious premise and stunt casting and turns it on its ear.

For those of you expecting “Ocean’s 13” Soderbergh, think again. This is one of his experimental films in the vein of “Bubble” -– an artsy, hand-held, intimate character study that flies in the face of his previous commercial efforts.

Soderbergh made headlines when he cast real-life porn star Sasha Grey in the starring role, but she’s surprisingly solid as Chelsea, a high-class escort dealing with balancing her work and personal life in the shadow of our fiscal crisis and presidential election.

What we see is Chelsea chatting, practically nonstop, with her wealthy clients – men of power and privilege who most of the time aren’t even interested in sex. What they want is an earpiece – to vent, to cajole, to advise – and Chelsea is more than willing to listen if the price is right.

That’s about it. There’s very little sexual activity – save for the subject matter and a brief flash of nudity, this could practically be PG-13 – because the film is much more interested in the dynamic between Chelsea and her clients and her long-suffering boyfriend.

There’s an icy detachment to Chelsea and to Soderbergh’s handling of the proceedings. The film feels very technical, using simple, clinical shots mostly from behind our protagonist. I’m not enough of a film critic to really get what this suggests, but it’s a purposeful technique.

At 78 minutes, this is a sparse slice of Chelsea’s life, but it doesn’t really need to be any longer. We realize her naiveté and pretension before she does, so to expound on it further would reduce the intimacy.

I like the fact that Soderbergh makes films like this; he seems to be one of the few filmmakers willing to take a chance, and you’ve got to respect him for that.

‘GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST’

I’m sure Matthew McConaughey could make a romantic comedy in his sleep these days, and while GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST (PG-13, ** 1/2) doesn’t break much new ground, I have to say that I had a decent time with it.

Normally these “true love”-based romantic comedies are so formulaic that I feel like there must be some sort of program that churns these out, but “Ghosts” at least has the hook of making the story a “Christmas Carol”-like tale of redemption.

McConaughey stars as Connor Mead, a hotshot photographer who is an irredeemable cad, breaking up with three girlfriends via conference call while squiring another into his office. He’s anti-love, anti-marriage and seems to be living the life.

But when Connor goes home for his brother’s wedding, he’s visited by the ghost of his Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas), the lothario who taught him the ways of the game. His uncle tells him he will be visited by three other ghosts who will take him down the path of his love life.

First up is Girlfriends Past (Emma Stone), the teenage girl who happened to be Connor’s first conquest. She shows him the girl he really loves, Jenny (Jennifer Garner), and how their relationship as children and later as adults framed the way Connor thinks about women.

Honestly, I probably laughed the hardest at the filmmakers’ attempt to make McConaughey look younger by adding a flowing mane – a ridiculous sight, considering he’s pushing 40.

We’ve gone through this territory before, so I don’t need to tell you about the eventual conflicts and resolutions to ensure the requisite happy ending.

No, the joys here come from Douglas’ smart performance as Uncle Wayne, and the throwaway gags that lie on the fringes of the story.

You can see the kernel here for an even better film, but given the sad state of the rom-com genre, this is a more-than-adequate entry.