Take two Hollywood performers at their peak, place them in a romantic comedy loosely inspired by the riotous Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and watch the fireworks FAIL to ignite. Ben Affleck is a rigid businessman who finds his efforts to make it home to Savannah in time for his nuptials with Maura Tierney constantly confounded by the weather, mechanical failures, coincidence and the temptations provided by wacky free spirit Sandra Bullock, who keeps getting thrown together with him.
Singularly Bullock and Affleck can be very entertaining, but together they do not have much spark between them. They come off more as a brother/sister pairing than potential romantics. Part of the problem is certainly the writing. Affleck's character is written as such a stick and Bullock is stuck playing such an offbeat stock character that the audience is never allowed to warm up to them. The less said about Tierney as Affleck's colorless fiancée, the better. Their misadventures grow tedious fairly quickly and events are not helped by Bronwen Hughes' uneven direction. Hughes either concludes scenes before they have built up a head of steam or allows them to drag on forever. For instance, the events at the hotel where Affleck and Bullock really start to bond and then run into acquaintances of his runs on and on and on. Meanwhile, a potentially hilarious sequence where, to earn money, Affleck reluctantly has to do a strip tease at a gay bar abruptly concludes right when it was starting to hit its comic high point. And these are only two examples. Hughes does not seem to understand what works and what does not. As such, we get a romance that is not particularly romantic, and a comedy with some scattered laughs that dry up long before the film has reached the two-thirds mark. I would venture to say there is not a smile to be had anywhere in the final third of this film.
Another issue that fails is the ending. It probably sounds very mature on paper and it is certainly a non-Hollywood climax, but it is incredibly dull and renders the majority of the preceding scenes pointless. In a romantic comedy, one should never introduce a female character that is more colorful and appealing than the woman with whom the leading man ends up with (and vice versa). That is exactly what the writers have done here. They manipulate two characters together for romance and then in the final moments of the film, they have Affleck do an abrupt about-face and declare his undying love for Tierney, while a wise-beyond-her-years Bullock slinks off alone into the sunset. Affleck needs to sell us wholesale that the sight of Tierney alone has made him fall back in love with her (after a scant moment before he was planning on breaking off their engagement) and it is beyond both the actor and the screenplay to convince the audience of this. Rather than making it seem like Affleck is a great guy, it makes him seem more than a tad fickle. The next time he is stuck away from his beloved Tierney for a day or so, is he going to have another crisis of love? Does Tierney need to be in his line of sight in order for him to maintain the love affair with her? The entire scenario is just plain foolish. Affleck and Bullock have been much better elsewhere, and fans would be advised to find those other efforts.
Singularly Bullock and Affleck can be very entertaining, but together they do not have much spark between them. They come off more as a brother/sister pairing than potential romantics. Part of the problem is certainly the writing. Affleck's character is written as such a stick and Bullock is stuck playing such an offbeat stock character that the audience is never allowed to warm up to them. The less said about Tierney as Affleck's colorless fiancée, the better. Their misadventures grow tedious fairly quickly and events are not helped by Bronwen Hughes' uneven direction. Hughes either concludes scenes before they have built up a head of steam or allows them to drag on forever. For instance, the events at the hotel where Affleck and Bullock really start to bond and then run into acquaintances of his runs on and on and on. Meanwhile, a potentially hilarious sequence where, to earn money, Affleck reluctantly has to do a strip tease at a gay bar abruptly concludes right when it was starting to hit its comic high point. And these are only two examples. Hughes does not seem to understand what works and what does not. As such, we get a romance that is not particularly romantic, and a comedy with some scattered laughs that dry up long before the film has reached the two-thirds mark. I would venture to say there is not a smile to be had anywhere in the final third of this film.
Another issue that fails is the ending. It probably sounds very mature on paper and it is certainly a non-Hollywood climax, but it is incredibly dull and renders the majority of the preceding scenes pointless. In a romantic comedy, one should never introduce a female character that is more colorful and appealing than the woman with whom the leading man ends up with (and vice versa). That is exactly what the writers have done here. They manipulate two characters together for romance and then in the final moments of the film, they have Affleck do an abrupt about-face and declare his undying love for Tierney, while a wise-beyond-her-years Bullock slinks off alone into the sunset. Affleck needs to sell us wholesale that the sight of Tierney alone has made him fall back in love with her (after a scant moment before he was planning on breaking off their engagement) and it is beyond both the actor and the screenplay to convince the audience of this. Rather than making it seem like Affleck is a great guy, it makes him seem more than a tad fickle. The next time he is stuck away from his beloved Tierney for a day or so, is he going to have another crisis of love? Does Tierney need to be in his line of sight in order for him to maintain the love affair with her? The entire scenario is just plain foolish. Affleck and Bullock have been much better elsewhere, and fans would be advised to find those other efforts.