The Torpedoe Intended to Sink "Titanic"

Rating: 5/10 (31 January 2007)

The epitome of everything wrong with Hollywood: We're to believe that Helen Hunt's character would fall for an obsessive compulsive, much older Jack Nicholson. Only in La-La-Land.
This film fails on so many levels...down to Helen Hunt's in-and-out Brooklyn accent. What could, and with all arguments should have been a dark drama, instead, under the direction of James L. Brooks, decides to compete in the genre of "Romantic Comedy." Going for all the laughs, we're expected to believe that a waitress, who has an asthmatic son, is going to endear herself to a person who everyone hates waiting on...so much so that she decided to take a road trip with that person, accompanied by a gay man, who is the neurotic's neighbor--who has nothing to endear himself to the obsessive compulsive, other than his fairy jokes and insults. Oh, sure, Jack insists on taking Helen's kid to the hospital, but, outside of that, who cares? More unbelievable than Madonna playing a virgin, this film forces us to suspend our disbelief too many times for any free thinking individual to take it seriously.
Sure--Hunt and Nicholson walked home with Oscars...but, look at what they had to compete with. And, where is Helen Hunt anyway? Now that the overrated "Mad About You" has become Trivial Pursuit fodder, her career hasn't exactly taken off.