Half quite good, half truly awful

Rating: 5/10 (1 June 2004)

This movie is based on a book you can read in about 15 minutes that is simply a funny list of things women can do to alienate guys. That's not a lot to base a movie on, and I thought the movie's central idea - a woman writing an article on how to lose a guy dating a man with a bet that he can make a woman fall in love with him - was fairly clever, although more clever in the telling than the execution.
The first half hour of this movie is quite dull, as the wheels are awkwardly set in motion. Then the movie becomes very funny as Andie drags Benjamin to a Chick Flick marathon and destroys his poker game. The getting-a-woman-to-fall-for-a-guy part is pretty much dropped; it seems to have just been there to give a reason for a guy to stay with a psycho chick other than the usual reason: sex.
The movie is funny for a good hour, until the movie decides it has to resolve its clunky set up. The last half hour is truly, utterly painful: the "You're So Vain" is possibly the most poorly conceived and badly executed thing to ever appear in any romantic movie in the last hundred years.
While most of the movie's failings can be laid at the feet of the writers and directors, it should be noted that, for all their efforts, Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey fail to manage anything more than a sort of lukewarm chemistry. Which would be fine in another sort of movie, but in something that wants to be a sparkling romantic comedy, chemistry is key. Because an absurd romance only makes sense if the principals seem perfect together, which they don't.
I would probably give the funny hour of this movie a 7, and the bad part a 2. I'll give the overall effect a 5/10.