This movie got horrid reviews. I don't normally like to read reviews until after I've seen a movie (and I guess I assume other people are the same, since I give away everything that happens in the movies I review here), but even I had read several snarky comments like "this movie lost its purpose along with the question mark," before I watched it. I think I even read that exact claim in a few places, so I'm not attributing it.
As all who know me know, I love romantic comedies, and I refuse to let go of hope for contemporary romantic comedies the way that some of my friends have. I can get incensed and rather emotional if I think that people are being snobby against romantic comedies, or unfairly privileging "better" genres of movies. But I still have standards. Of course I don't mind coincidences or situational misunderstandings, the cornerstone of the medium, but I can't stand movies that revolve around premises that feel emotionally fake. To highlight one of the most appalling of offerings: why exactly does one need to learn to lose a guy in ten days?
"How Do You Know" is an eccentric romantic comedy and one that could probably only have been made by an auteur of the genre because it basically has no hook. There's no essential misunderstanding that launches the plot, and the only coincidence to speak of (the fact that two characters share the same luxury DC apartment building, and its doorman) is hardly central. If, after the movie was over, the female lead was to describe to one of her friends how she met the man she ended up with, it would not sound remarkable - it would not automatically sound like the kind of thing that should be turned into a romantic comedy.
Lisa, played by Reese Witherspoon, is a professional softball player who gets cut from the national team that has defined her life and has to begin to face a life post-sports. She feels lost and decides to pursue a relationship that she knows is never going to be really serious with Matty, a goofy professional baseball star, played by Owen Wilson, who sleeps with so many women he has a supply closet full of team sweatshirts to temper their walks of shame. Around the same time, she meets George, played by Paul Rudd. He too has just been evicted from his life as a corporate who-knows-what, since he is now the subject of a federal investigation, for having done he-literally-doesn't-know-what. They have an awkward conversation before either of them knows that professional doom is on the way, and once he gets his bad news, he calls her and asks her out in an effort to distract himself. So desperate is he for distraction that he becomes obsessed with her. She likes him too, but she is distracting herself from her own doom by trying to make her relationship with Matty work. Then some other things happen and finally they get together. And unlike so many cloying studio romantic comedies, it's actually fun to watch!
The movie has flaws. There are some real comic misses, jokes that were so bad I felt myself almost laughing at them just out of pity because I liked the movie, and I found Reese Witherspoon tightly wound and kind of unlikable - there's almost something ugly about her cute little face. But Paul Rudd really committed to the role of the hapless bambi suitor who is actually right for the girl, and in the scene where he finally wins her heart by giving her play dough, I was rooting for him all the way. I agree with the New York Times pan that the single best moment in the movie may have been the declaration of love that George's secretary and best friend Annie receives from her boyfriend, Al (Kathryn Hahn and Lenny Venito), though the worst scene in the movie was the moment immediately following that one, when they try to recreate the moment because George forgot to click "record" on the video camera (I considered not liking the movie anymore for about 30 seconds right around then).
A small taste of how quietly bizarre this movie is: when George is making his final play for Lisa, we know that if she loves him back, George's father, played by a rascally Jack Nicholson, will have to go to jail for the rest of his life. So even though we want them to get together, we also kind of don't want it to work out. As they kiss happily in a bus stop, George knows this fact, and so does his father who - taking advantage of that one coincidence - sees them kissing from the vantage point of his balcony. He smiles to himself, happy to see his son in love. And then, remembering, he stops smiling. This movie isn't good enough to pull this off as a deep moment about the dark side behind every happy moment, but... come on, this movie was pretty good.
No comments:
Post a Comment