Horrible!

Rating: 5/10 (9 May 2005)

This movie makes the assumption that when beautiful people, who are complete strangers, get together, they immediately kiss and fall in love. It amazes me that so many people comment of the realism of this film. It could not be farther from reality (unless you expand the definition to include "Reality" dating shows.) Where do we see that these people would ever fall in love with each other? They meet and then they are all in love. Not one frame of this movie is devoted to the how or why they fall in love. "You're pretty, I'm pretty" leads to sex not love. We are not even shown when the couples get back together. We have to hear it from the characters mouths. Is that suppose to be exposition? Making up is the low hanging fruit of any love story. They couldn't even write this in? A myriad of factors go into falling in love. Not the least of which is the test of time. This makes writing love into a movie very difficult, but there are several examples of it being done successfully. To call this a "reality based" love story discredits films like "Eternal Sunshine" and "When a Man Loves a Woman". Yes, even the sci-fi movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" does a better job of showing us a true picture of two people in love than this movie does.
The final collection of scenes (especially the hotel scene with Portman and Law) were pretty good and provided some redemption for the film. However, the final scene with her walking down the street and all the guys' heads turning was really bad. What are we supposed to believe that she is "beautiful" and empowered now? She's Natalie Portman! When in this film was she not beautiful? If you want to see the transformation of a female character from self conscious and meek to strong and empowered (and therefore beautiful on that merit alone) then look to Whoopie Goldberg's character in the Color Purple.