The Show

Rating: Null/10 (15 February 2007)

Films define romance to such a dominant extent that the so-called date movie can't stray far from "the story," the story of what romantic love is all about. Naturally the larger arc of that story must be that the couple falls in love (often in unlikely or ironic circumstances). They break up usually because of some misunderstanding (and in this case it is often a miscommunication) or because the man is reluctant. Then at the end they get together again, and exactly how the man makes the plea is the whole point of the movie.
That last act, the re-romance, the certification of what we saw before as genuine... that is almost always a public act. There has to be an audience in the scene. The reason is a narrative necessity that I call folding. We feel things more sharply when we think we are part of them. So if we see ourselves literally in the film, if we see an audience watching as we watch... If we see their faces react, then we react too.
So for many, many date movies, the writing challenge is how to engineer that final fold. Here it is done by starting at the end. We need Grant to sing a love song to an abandoned Drew, in front of a packed audience at Madison Square Garden. The writer (in this case Lawrence) may have started with the problem, so he created a writer with the same problem, how to find the story, the words. Its brilliant, the solution. Drew IS the words and also provides the words.
Its made plain even for the stupidest of us: melody (which Grant provides) is just the appearance. The words are the soul, where the romance is rooted. That's Drew. Of course you knew that going in, but she actually says this on screen.
Along the way, we are given a B. Spears like singer who shows us the superficial, literally buttwagging public seduction of the most superficial kind. On Drew's side is her sister a huge, heavy woman who runs a diet supply store but eats like a horse. She brackets Drew with the sexy singer to let us know that although Drew isn't pretty and thin and sexy in those ways, what she has is the words. In fact the ditsy singer initiates the search for the words that Drew provides. We even have the food and words metaphors combined when our lovers talk about real romance as real song and both as "dinner."
Its a remarkable solution. As the need for expensive, solid date movies increases, look for all sorts of clever writing along these lines.
Unfortunately the actual film-making here stinks. Its just a poorly done movie that handles the sparkles from these two ineptly. Its odd, because the shows within the show are marvelously perfect, including an ersatz music video at the very beginning. That video, by the way distills the entire story.
Oh. Drew's character is unhappy at the beginning because she has been "badly written" by her former lover, a novelist.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.