Love is patient. Love is kind. Supposedly.
But in His Girl Friday, love is more like heads knocked together, shins kicked, and trains blown up. Hildy and Walter treat love as arm-wrestling, or word whacking, blasting each other with barrages of babble, while Bruce stands off to the side and makes "aw gosh" noises.
The romance in His Girl Friday (and in screwball comedies in general) is a fight; you go to the altar less out of transcendent happiness than out of exhausted resignation.
Questions about Love
- Does Bruce love Hildy? Explain your answer.
- Does Hildy love Walter? Explain your answer.
- Does Walter love Hildy? Explain your answer.
Chew on This
Take a peek at these thesis statements. Agree or disagree?
Hildy loves Walter from the beginning of the film.
Hildy never loves Walter; what she loves is the newspaper business.