BEFORE: When you've got a whole month of romance-based films ahead of you, you're going to want to sort of ease into it. No point in doing all the heavy lifting right away - light comedies to start.
Day 4 of the Aniston-a-thon, but I can't help but feel like I've sort of seen this one before - Ben Stiller (last seen in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian"), a honeymoon gone wrong on a tropical paradise...
THE PLOT: A buttoned-up newlywed finds his too organized life falling into chaos when he falls in love with an old classmate.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Heartbreak Kid" (Movie #408)
AFTER: Ah, the key difference between this and "The Heartbreak Kid" - in that film it was Stiller's character himself who doubted the relationship while on his honeymoon, and in this film, it's his wife. That's significant if you want the audience to root for the central character. Who do we feel for more, the cheater or the cheated-upon?
And not much of this film takes place in a tropical setting - the plot really develops when he returns to New York and bumps into Polly, a girl he knew in middle-school, and he wonders if she represents a path that the universe has chosen for him. Again, two schools of thought - do you believe in fate that puts two people together in one place, or do you believe in the power of people to recognize these random occurences and control their own destinies?
Reuben, Stiller's character here, is all about risk - calculating it for others, and avoiding it himself. He works in insurance (the word "actuary" is never used, but seems to fit) and calculates the risk that high-profile people take - the rich and powerful, who enjoy swimming with sharks and base-jumping.
He's not wrong when he imagines that bowls of bar peanuts are rife with bacteria, or that people don't wash their hands after using a public restroom. Every day on the subway, I see people cough into their hands, or wipe their noses, and put their hands RIGHT BACK on the pole. First of all, if they've got a cold, they shouldn't be going to work and spreading it, and secondly, eww... I'm constantly on the watch for what to not touch - mostly I try not to touch the poles at all.
I feel for Reuben, I understand him - I don't eat spicy foods, and I certainly don't dance. I went to get an eye exam today, and the optician wanted to know if I engaged in any activities that might be dangerous to my eyes. She said, "What's your favorite outdoor activity?" and I replied, "Grilling". Then she said, "No, I mean, what's your favorite sport?" "Umm...trivia?"
But he's forced out of his comfort zone when trying to impress Polly, and she's all over the map - I mean, she's lived all over the map, she likes salsa dancing and Indian food, which leads to physical comedy and toilet humor. I thought slapstick was the lowest form of humor - I stand corrected.
I appreciated the fact that the Reuben/Polly relationship was always in a bit of flux - it seemed like one of those things that if they would try to define it, they'd kill it. But eventually you've got to put some kind of a label on these things, and that's when you might find out that one person is taking the relationship more seriously than the other, who might just be treating it like a bit of fun.
When it comes time to make a definitive choice, can the guy who's always avoided risk learn to stop doing that? Love is risk - you're giving the other person the power to hurt you, whether you realize it or not.
Also starring Philip Seymour Hoffman (last seen in "Moneyball"), Debra Messing (last heard in "Garfield"), Hank Azaria (last seen in "The Smurfs"), Alec Baldwin, Bryan Brown, with cameos from Michele Lee, Judah Friedlander (last seen in "The Darwin Awards"), Missy Pyle, Masi Oka.
RATING: 4 out of 10
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