mixed bag-revised

Rating: Null/10 (12 November 2003)

SPOILERS INCLUDED WITHIN:
It reminded me of how you feel during the uncertainty stages of falling in love and also when getting the nerve to speak up and take a chance. The first five minutes set in the airport were beautiful and already got me crying! I also really liked how it went from comedy to drama so seamlessly. A lot of the comedy to me was WAYYYYYYYYYY too silly, though and pretty annoying. The drama was very well done and my absolute favorite part was when the friend of the blonde woman confessed his love to her on those cards. Unbelievable, and boy was he good-looking!!
I also liked how it portrayed different types of love--from a crush, to unrequited/impossible love, love of family, sex (but not!), the usual romantic love, and even platonic love between a straight man and his trusty and loyal manager. Ironically, probably the best relationship seemed to happen between the two "porn" stars. That was adorable and of course the irony of how shy and sweet they were, contrasting with what they were doing, was priceless.
Now for the negative side: it was extremely superficial in that that the women were largely model-quality gorgeous and the men "loved" them based on looks only. They didn't actually even know some of them (the kid, for example) That is hardly love! The two women that weren't (at least in this movie) model-quality gorgeous actually got screwed (Emma Thompson and Laura Linney). If the target audience for a romantic comedy is women, that was not a wise move.
None of us women appreciated the fat jokes about Hugh Grant's assistant, Natalie who looked great and was not fat in any way. She was not a stick figure, but looked like a woman is supposed to look! Marilyn Monroe had that body type (actually heavier) and it seemed to work for her! No one called her fat throughout her movies!! Also ticking off the core audience.
Another extremely annoying and ridiculous feature was that the model-quality women were just handing themselves over to the men and they didn't have to use any effort! Like Claudia Schiffer to Liam Neeson, after talking to him for one minute: "I'll make SURE we see each other again." And Alan Rickman's character was not attractive and had no personality. There is no way his secretary, an attractive young girl would throw herself at him, knowing he was married to boot. And the guy going to the US--that was just so ridiculous, (even worse than typical cheesy US movies and any beer commercial, and even Just Shoot Me, where David Spade only ended up with 1 supermodel). I thought it was a dream that he was having on the plane. He should have come back empty handed. Again, ticking off the core audience!!!

Besides, the effort to win the person's heart is the core action in a romantic comedy. To leave it out and have the woman just hand herself to the guy is the same as having an action hero be asleep for 2 hours, the bad guy walks up to him and then has a heart attack and dies at his feet! Kind of defeats the purpose of the movie, in addition to being annoying!!
This was clearly written and directed by a man--it was slanted in that direction. I just wasn't prepared for that type of "Just Shoot Me" style misogyny in a Hugh Grant romantic comedy. There was none of that in Notting Hill, Four Weddings, etc., which were ironically written and directed by the same man. Note: women go to romantic comedies to get AWAY from that crap for 2 short hours!!!