BEFORE: Matthew McConaughey carries over from "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" to play another serial dater who oozes toxic masculinity and must be shown the error of his ways (I'm guessing here).
I got very lucky with this film, since I programmed it a few months ago when it was on Netflix, and of course I've been dealing with this ongoing problem of films being removed from Netflix, because it takes me so long to get around to watching some of them. So I checked a couple weeks ago, and sure enough, this one was gone - BUT it just started running on premium cable again, about one day before I needed to watch it. But with good luck comes a bunch of bad - there are about 6 or 7 other films that I linked together for this year's romance chain that have ALSO vanished from Netflix. Now I'll have to decide if I want to drop them or catch them all on iTunes for $2.99 or $3.99 each.
What a terrible business model Netflix is - OK, you can watch this film, but only for a little while! And we're not going to give you any heads up about what's going to disappear, or when. Jeez, even the cable On Demand films tell me what date they're going to stop being offered. And for 6 top romance films to disappear, right before February - don't you think that's when people might want to get around to WATCHING those films, with Valentine's Day coming up? I just don't get it.
Here's the TCM "31 Days of Oscar" line-up for tomorrow, February 2. Tomorrow's topics are "Edge of Your Seat", "Favorite 1960's Visual Effects Winner" and "Best Battle with the Bottle".
4:15 am "Night Must Fall" (1937)
6:15 am "Sudden Fear" (1952)
8:15 am "The Third Man" (1949)
10:00 am "Panic in the Streets" (1950)
11:45 am "Suspicion" (1941)
1:30 pm "Strangers on a Train" (1951)
3:30 pm "North by Northwest" (1959)
6:00 pm "Wait Until Dark" (1957)
8:00 pm "Fantastic Voyage" (1966)
10:00 pm "Doctor Dolittle" (1967)
12:45 am "Days of Wine and Roses" (1962)
3:00 am "The Lost Weekend" (1945)
I'm scoring big today, I've seen 9 out of these 12 (all except the first two and "Panic in the Streets"), for a running score of 14 out of 23, just over 60%. I probably won't be able to maintain that - but tune in to TCM tomorrow if you like suspense, crazy visual effects, or movies about alcoholism, or the crazy combination of those.
THE PLOT: To win a big campaign, an advertising executive bets he can make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days. The woman he meets in a bar, however, has been assigned to write a magazine article on "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days".
AFTER: Jesus, what are the odds against these crazy kids finding each other? He's trying to prove that he can make ANY woman fall in love with him in 10 days, and she's doing research for an article to prove that she can drive a man away in the SAME EXACT period of time! That's some class-A, prime O. Henry-level of irony right there. Or it would be, if it didn't just feel like the biggest coincidence EVER. Just like his character in last night's film, McConaughey's Ben Barry has apparently never had a relationship that lasted more than 1 or 2 dates - I suppose here that's because he's so focused on his cool, hip advertising career, but it doesn't seem much healthier than when he was a serial-dating (and multiple breaking-up with) fashion photographer.
But the formula doesn't work with his romantic partner, who's positioned here as his polar opposite - she supposedly does everything RIGHT when dating, and is assigned to do everything WRONG to prove a point and also write a "How not to..." sort of guide. But if she's been doing everything right, if she's so good at dating, then why isn't she married, or in a stable relationship? This is the point where a respectable writer should have crumpled up the paper and thrown it in the trash from across the room. She can't possibly be a dating expert if she's also had a string of short-term relationships, even if they were all for weeks or months at a time. The foil character is another (mousier) employee of the magazine who just broke up with her latest boyfriend, after doing everything wrong, like calling him too many times, saying "I love you" too soon, and being needy, whiny, and annoying.
Both sexes get tremendously stereotyped for this plot to occur - nobody comes out unscathed. The "average" woman needs to be talked down to and taught to go against her natural tendencies to form a lasting partnership bond in order to not scare off a potential mate (yet her best friends are still afraid to tell her directly "Hey, you're doing it wrong...") and the men are all clueless about what makes a woman tick, and they're also too dumb to realize that they're being played, so when the women start acting in random, insane fashion, they just chalk it up to "Well, I guess I don't understand women, who act in random ways..." Because people can't possibly learn from their mistakes and adapt their behavior to do better next time, come on, it'll just never happen. In reality, people say "Well, I won't make THAT mistake again..." and then go on to make all new mistakes, but that's OK, it's part of the process.
The twist here seems to be intended to turn the male/female dynamic on its ear, where for once the man is trying to be the one holding the relationship together and do everything right, while the woman is trying to tear it apart and do everything wrong. But even in that P.C. way of doing that, it sort of acknowledges that the other way would feel a little more right somehow, so that sort of negates the result. In other words, by saying that it takes a wager and a work assignment to get a man and a woman to act against type, that acknowledges that there IS a type, and we're back where we started. Still, there's something akin to "The Taming of the Shrew" here, where potential lovers are forced to use artifice to break down those relationship barriers, and of course accidentally fall in love in the process. Though I'd hate to think that if Billy Shakes were alive today, he'd be writing Hollywood bedroom farces such as this.
You can watch this film, however, and think about yourself, how long would you last if someone you were dating was acting in an annoying or irrational manner, calling you too much or giving you cutesy nicknames. I would imagine the scene where Andie asks Ben to get her a drink at the Knicks game, with one minute left on the game clock, would be a breaking point for most men. Why didn't he just say, "Here's $5, there's the concession stand over there..."? If you're a fan of a team, game time is sacred time. But it's a huge NITPICK POINT to show the NY Knicks playing in the NBA Finals - right, like that could ever happen...
Another NITPICK POINT - Andie and Ben take the Staten Island Ferry out to see his family, but they also take his motorcycle along. All vehicles were banned from the ferries after the 9/11 attacks, and this film was released in 2003, so they would not have been able to bring the cycle on the ferry. Now, perhaps this was filmed a couple of years before it was released, but the N.P. stands.
Also starring Kate Hudson (last seen in "Rock the Kasbah"), Kathryn Hahn (last seen in "The Family Fang"), Annie Parisse (last seen in "Prime"), Adam Goldberg (last seen in "EdTV"), Thomas Lennon (last seen in "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"), Michael Michele (last seen in "Ali"), Shalom Harlow (last seen in "Melinda and Melinda"), Robert Klein (last seen in "Hooper"), Bebe Neuwirth (last seen in "Le Divorce"), Celia Weston (last seen in "Adult Beginners"), James Murtaugh (last seen in "Two Weeks"), Archie MacGregor, Samantha Quan, Liliane Montevecchi, James Mainprize, William Hill (last seen in "A Most Violent Year"), Tony Longo (last seen in "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas"), with cameos from Marvin Hamlisch and the voice of Marv Albert.
RATING: 4 out of 10 family album photos
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