Helen Hunt's Oscar well-deserved

Rating: 9/10 (18 September 1999)

One persistent criticism I've seen of this film is that Hunt's Oscar for the role was a gift, that she didn't have to really work for it, that the role was too slight, yatta yatta yatta. But one of the things that made this an exceptional romantic comedy for me was a combination of Hunt's performance and a very different approach to comedy. Comedy, especially romantic comedy, has pace; it zips and zings along, you think of the classics like _It Happened One Night_. But this film does the opposite; some of its best moments, like when Melvin is struggling to come up with a compliment, or when Carol is trying to explain to her mother her attraction for Melvin, are filled with huge pauses. Lots and lots of space and time. And it's in these moments that Hunt really shines, showing that she's not dependent on the badda-bing pace of something like _Mad About You_ but has that mysterious something that used to be called screen presence, the ability to draw people in even when there's nothing happening.