Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
1/7/11
First,
let me say I really liked this movie. As we sometimes do, I connected
with it on an emotional level wholly separate from any sense of whether
it was all that well done. Romantic Comedies may be the most
subjective of all movie genres because they tend to rise and fall on two
things: 1)do you like the central couple enough to root for them
to end up together, and 2)if so, does the screenplay manipulate events
so shamefully and artlessly that you come to despise it just as much as
you like the couple. If the movie passes both tests, odds are you'll
feel like it's better than it really is. If it fails, you'll probably
hate it with a passion exceeding its actual issues. Luckily for How
Do You Know, the latest from hot and cold genre icon James L. Brooks,
there aren't many actors I like better in this genre than Reece Witherspoon
and Paul Rudd. And while Brooks' structure is meandering and his
understanding of the worlds in which he's set his story less than complete,
he has written them great characters to play and handed them his usual
first-rate quotable dialog. I can see how How Do You Know
would be an easy movie to dislike were you so inclined, but I was carried
along quite happily by those characters, and I really hoped they'd end
up together. It's no As Good As It Gets, but it's a first-rate
romantic comedy for the two reasons stated above. Did I mention I
really liked it?
Lisa
(Reece Witherspoon) was a star of the US Women's Softball team. But
as it does with all athletes, age has caught up to her, the heartless new
coach (Dean Norris) has cut her, and she's left with no clue how to get
on with her life. One option presents itself in the person of Washington
Nationals pitcher Matty (Owen Wilson), who shares another in a long line
of one-night stands with her and then falls in love. But there's
another guy, George (Paul Rudd), with whom she shared a disastrous blind
date that seemed pretty good to him, perhaps because the rest of his life
is going so badly. Under investigation for wrongdoing done at his
company unbeknownst to him by his sneaky father Charles (Jack Nicholson),
George is instantly smitten and rewarded by fate that Matty and Charles
happen to live in the same building, so he and Lisa keep running into each
other. She wants to make a go of things with the wealthy baseball
star, but he's got no clue how to settle down and is as utterly shallow
as he is fun to be around. The kind, romantic George seems like a
better fit, but there is the matter of the federal investigation, and the
fact that his going to prison for a few years may be the only thing that
can keep his father from spending the rest of his life behind bars.
Characters
like George almost always end up as the “nice but not man enough to get
the girl” runner-up in romantic comedies while I sit on the sidelines and
protest the injustice. And I'm a huge Paul Rudd guy, as anyone who's
read a review of one of his movies on this site undoubtedly knows.
So, while it's clear from the get-go that Matty's out of luck, I kept waiting
for the story to give George the shiv as well and leave all parties to
go their separate ways sad but wiser, actually a good thing because it
generates some genuine suspense where there'd ordinarily be none.
Witherspoon hasn't found as many good roles as I'd have wished for her
post-Legally Blonde, but when she's on her game, she has the rare
gift of seeming not just adorable but also like someone you'd genuinely
want to get to know. And Lisa is a great character for her precisely
because there's a lot of meat to her, an insecurity desperately masked
with the illusion of being completely self-confident. I loved the
way almost every inch of her house was covered with motivational sticky
notes, and how Brooks never once comments upon it, letting the simple fact
of their presence underscore that part of Witherspoon's performance that's
about Lisa knowing how to put on a show for the people who expect her to
be strong as opposed to actually feeling that strength herself. I
think the single most important thing for romcom characters is for them
to feel incomplete and just a little bit sad, because we have to feel like
they NEED this relationship or else it's merely nice if they get together
rather than essential. Brooks and his actors do that quite well here,
and it carries the day.
And,
of course, you get the usual Brooks feast of quality dialog and well-observed
moments. Of particular note are a speech Lisa gives about how she
suspects everyone who says they're in love is really pretending, George's
lovely explanation of why he finds Play Doh inspirational, and an absolutely
beautiful scene where the couple and Charles end up at George's secretary
Annie's (Kathryn Hahn) bedside in the maternity ward while her boyfriend
(Lenny Venito, walking off with his single scene) proposes. These
are mostly stock roles for Wilson and Nicholson, but they do solid jobs
with them, and there are memorable small parts for Mark Lynn-Baker and
Tony Shalhoub (who Monk fans will be pretty amused to see playing
a psychiatrist).
It's
not all perfect, of course: Brooks sets half his story in a world
of bat-and-ball sports he doesn't seem to know that much about, and it's
pretty much impossible to buy either Lisa or Matty as a real professional
in their respective fields (the woman takes her eye off the ball when her
cell phone rings so he can wring a cheap laugh out of her getting hit in
the face. Ouch in every possible way). Brooks really needed
to hold out for a better take of a key line near the end, which Rudd, as
much as I love him, delivers horribly. And, yes, Lisa and George
do ultimately feel more like life preservers for each other than true soulmates,
but they're two people who REALLY need life preservers, so I'm not so much
complaining about that as seeing where others might find it to be an issue.
You've
probably noticed that I've done a fair amount of apologizing for How
Do You Know, and it is one of those movies I clearly understand isn't
as good as the time I had watching it. As I said, most romantic comedies
come down to the quality of the stars, their characters and the script's
ability to stay out of their way. And in that regard, How Do You
Know is three for three, and in the process made me unreasonably happy.
Your results may vary. |
