painfully bad

Rating: 2/10 (31 December 2004)

Where to start on this superficial, overly-sentimental piece of garbage?
The blatant sexism? The total lack of any developed characters? Hugh Grant as prime minister?
The flaws are too many to count, but I'll just go over some of my biggest problems with this piece of junk ...
1. There is not one single character that is even moderately developed. We are flooded with all these situations in which these humanoids are supposedly falling in love, or already in love, with each other yet we have absolutely no idea why, nor in most cases do the characters seem to know either.

Writer falls in love with maid. Let's not bother with the fact they've never spoken a single word to each other (they don't speak a common tongue) and don't know each other at all. She looks good in a bathing suit. Apparently that's all that's necessary for a guy to ask a girl to marry him (and for her to say yes). Superficial garbage relationship #1.

Prime minister falls in love with his secretary. Do any of us know why, other than the fact she likes to swear in inappropriate places? No, of course not. That would require writing and actual ... you know ... story. Superficial garbage relationship #2.

Office-worker lady is in love with a co-worker. Do we know why? Do we get to know either of these characters at all? Of course not. That would once again involve actually developing a story. All we know is the guy looks like an abercrombie and fitch model. If there's any other reason to love the guy, we sure don't know about it. Superficial garbage relationship #3.

Dude is in love with his best friend's wife. Sure, she's Keira Knightley and therefore hot as hell. Do we have any other idea why this guy is in love with her, and willing to hit on his friend's wife behind his back? No, of course not. Once again, apparently all we need to know to is that she's hot ... the end. Superficial garbage relationship #4.

2. Bizarre misogyny. Almost all the relationships in this movie involve some extreme power differential b/w the male and female. The guys want the hot chicks because they're hot, the hot chicks want the old fart guys because ... because ... I'm not sure. Because they have good jobs I guess. There's also an inordinate amount of time where one of the hot chicks is bagged on repeatedly for being "fat". Note this is a girl that could only be considered "fat" in the movie-make-believe world. Even in that world it still doesn't make any sense. The term "fat" is one of the last that would come to mind when describing her and I spent more than a couple minutes scratching my head trying to figure out why characters were making fun of her physical appearance. On any other universe she's a solid "9". If this girl is lucky to have a relationship because she's "fat", all I can say to the rest of you women out there is you might as well shoot yourselves, cause she's hotter than 98% of you.
3. You know how in a good romance movie there is often that one point where the characters finally have their big connection which fulfills the build-up of the movie over the first couple acts? This movie just skips all the stuff involved in actually telling the story of relationships and just has the sappy payoff ... in every scene of the movie ... over and over again. While watching this wreck I couldn't help but feeling that the writer just took the payoff scene in his top 50 favorite romance movies and just wrote them all into one movie. Too bad he left out all the stuff leading up to the payoffs (character, plot, theme, etc) that made them work in the first place.
Pure junk. One of the worst movies I've seen.