About Time (2013)
DIRECTOR: Richard Curtis
CAST: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy
REVIEW:
Writer-director Richard Curtis might not stray out of his romantic comedy comfort zone (he was previously the screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones’ Diary, and the writer-director of Love Actually), but for his latest installment, he’s souped it up with a time travel twist. Actually, given how the premise hinges on it, how fast and loose Curtis plays with his own established time travel rules might annoy some sticklers for consistency too much to appreciate the film’s charms, but while riddled with topsy turvy internal logic, About Time is a pleasant, sentimental little romantic comedy-drama that offers an enjoyable diversion for those who appreciate this sort of thing. Continue reading
Warm Bodies (2013)
DIRECTOR: Jonathan Levine
CAST: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Corddry, Dave Franco, Analeigh Tipton, Cory Hardrict, John Malkovich
REVIEW:
An adaptation of Isaac Marion’s novel, Warm Bodies combines two genres you might have reasonably expected to never see combined—romantic comedy and zombies. Warm Bodies aspires to be part romantic comedy, part satire, and part more straightforward zombie thriller. If that sounds like a clashing jumble, that’s because it is, and the movie’s schizophrenic, trying-to-be-a-little-bit-of-everything tone holds it back from fully succeeding at being anything, but there are also enough witty moments, likable leads, and a unique premise to make Warm Bodies at least worth a curious look. Continue reading
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
DIRECTOR: David O. Russell
CAST: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles, John Ortiz, Dash Mihok, Anupam Kher
REVIEW:
Silver Linings Playbook technically falls into the romantic comedy genre, but it’s a less rosy, edgier, more adult version without completely abandoning the tropes fans come to see. As unlikely as it might sound, director David O. Russell (not one to shy away from quirky material) uses mental illness as a catalyst for humor and romance. To that end, Silver Linings Playbook is a quirky, frothy romantic comedy-drama bolstered by solid acting and a more in-depth treatment of mental illness than one might expect. Continue reading
This Means War (2012)
DIRECTOR: McG
CAST:
Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Chelsea Handler, Til Schweiger, Angela Bassett, Rosemary Harris
REVIEW:
This Means War is an adequate hour and a half of diversion for the bored and undemanding, but is as slickly studio-polished a slice of fluffy and forgettable mindless entertainment as can be found. Continue reading
Letters to Juliet (2010)
DIRECTOR: Gary Winick
CAST:
Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Egan, Gael Garcia Bernal, Franco Nero, Oliver Platt
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW DISCUSSES “SPOILERS” OF THE FILM’S PLOT
Letters to Juliet is a pleasant, unchallenging little story that doesn’t offer any plot turns that aren’t possible to see coming a hundred miles away but serves up enough sweetness to be an adequate morsel for those seeking something to whet the appetite of their inner romantic. Continue reading
500 Days of Summer (2009)
DIRECTOR: Marc Webb
CAST: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Chloe Grace Moretz, Geoffrey Arend, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Minka Kelly
REVIEW:
While it contains its share of romance, 500 Days of Summer is not a romantic comedy, at least not in the conventional sense. As the narration informs us from the get-go, “this is not a love story”, and it acknowledges that every romance isn’t “happily ever after”. Using a non-linear narrative structure, it’s a deconstruction of the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship that follows its protagonist, not always in chronological order, as he runs the gamut from exhilarated joy to crushing heartbreak, and all the little moments in between. In a way, it’s not about the boy getting the girl, but the boy learning to get over the girl and living his life instead of desperately clinging to a relationship that may not have ever been as compatible as he thought it was. That 500 Days of Summer manages to do all this without being a total downer is a tribute to the smart and witty screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, the sophisticated and visually inventive direction by first-time filmmaker Marc Webb, and the charm of star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Despite the inherent bittersweet poignancy of the premise, this is–for the most part–a breezy, entertaining, enjoyable comedy-drama that manages in the end to be optimistic and life-affirming rather than bitter or depressing. Among “breakup movies”, this is as “feel good” an example as you’re likely to find. Continue reading
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
DIRECTOR: Michel Gondry
CAST: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood
REVIEW:
Taking its quirky title from a poem by Alexander Pope, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a product of offbeat French music video and movie director Michel Gondry and the twisted mind of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, is stimulating and refreshing proof that a movie’s existence within the “romantic comedy” genre—sort of—does not inherently doom it to cookie-cutter formula. There’s nothing conventional or formulaic about this charmingly eccentric, visually inventive movie, which uses a quirky and original premise to explore themes of love, loss, memory, and the ideas that “it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”, and that we need all of our memories, both happy and painful, to make us who we are.
Continue readingLove Actually (2003)
DIRECTOR: Richard Curtis
CAST:
Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney,Bill Nighy, Keira Knightley, Kris Marshall, Heike Makatsch, Martin Freeman, Joanna Page,Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln, Martine McCutcheon, Thomas Sangster, Lúcia Moniz, Rodrigo Santoro, Rowan Atkinson, Billy Bob Thornton
REVIEW:
Love Actually is taglined as ‘the ultimate romantic comedy’, and while I wouldn’t go that far, it might be the most ambitious. Continue reading
Maid in Manhattan (2002)
DIRECTOR: Wayne Wang
CAST: Jennifer Lopez, Ralph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins, Stanley Tucci, Natasha Richardson, Frances Conroy, Tyler Garcia Posey
REVIEW:
There have been innumerable versions of the Cinderella story, some conventional (the animated Disney version), some fresh, irreverent, and enjoyable (Ever After), some simply redundant, and Maid in Manhattan is surely one of the most uninspired and perfunctory of them all. Granted, romantic comedies are rarely original, but Maid in Manhattan is such a formulaic, by-the-numbers movie with nary a spark of energy or distinction that it’s one of those most depressing movies to sit through- something completely mediocre. Continue reading
About a Boy (2002)
DIRECTOR: Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz
CAST:
Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz
REVIEW:
Based on the book by Nick Hornby, produced by the producers of Bridget Jones’ Diary, and directed by the team of brothers who brought us American Pie, About A Boy is a prime example of how an approach heavy on irreverent wit and keeping the cloying sentimentality to a restrained minimum can inject enough freshness into a generic stock premise to make what could have been a bore a breezy and enjoyable viewing experience. Continue reading