| Overall Grade: |
B |
|
| Story: |
C+ |
|
|
| Acting: |
B |
|
|
| Direction: |
B |
|
|
| Visuals: |
B+ |
|
|
Corny, formulaic, but cute
by Jennifer (movies profile)
Apr 2, 2008
127
of
148 people found this review helpful
In this formulaic little romantic comedy, John Cusack plays the same character he played in "Say Anything" - complete with that long, sexy black trenchcoat. While older and a little more jaded, he's still the perfect guy: good-looking but not unattainably so, reluctantly accompanying his friend to a strip club and turning down offers of meaningless sex. He meets Diane Lane, an equally perfect fortyish woman who is too busy drinking tea and caring for preschoolers to notice how beautiful she is. Sparks fly, then are doused by misunderstanding, and then are eventually rekindled. You know the story. You've seen it a hundred times.
People with no visible means of support live alone in luxurious surroundings. They have quirky but harmless relatives whose foibles are treated more as funny sight-gags than as anything else. There are no deep issues: no parents in failing health, no children with heartwrenching problems. Just the eeny-weeny conundrum of how to get Lane and Cusack together before the popcorn runs out.
But who wouldn't race to the nearest theater to see a movie that boasts such greats as Christopher Plummer, Stockard Channing, and the perennially great Lane and Cusack? Plummer recites Yeats and Channing dispenses real-woman dating advice. And the show is stolen by a spectacular Newfoundland whose talents are underused. Go see this movie, but don't expect it to be "Beaches" or "Dr. Zhivago." It is what it is, and that was fine with me. |
My Public Profile 
