Unsupported

Rating: 4/10 (14 August 2011)

Do you consider A Lot Like Love and Guess Who to be classics of rom-com cinema? We're in Ashton Kutcher as lead-man territory. The romantic sensibilities are the same in all of these movies, Kutcher's goofy exterior and sensible interior somehow hits a perfect note of completely dull. He's at his best when put into awkward situations that he tries to slip his way out of, but there is not a whole lot of that here.
Right then. So the story is about how nobody can be friends with benefits, and comedy ensues. Except these two are jealous coy lovers nearly from frame one (the first fifteen minutes or so goes through their back history of meeting in which even just seeing each other with potential relationships makes both of them look sad panda) and so what it's really about is Portman's character Emma trying to get over a crippling and aggressive fear of commitment. The territory in which to explore this is vast, and the scenes that actually do all work just fine. For some reason I have no real comprehension of, the movie engineers as many ways as possible of refusing to acknowledge its own core dramatic element. Probably the most egregious deviation is this completely random rival for Emma's affections, whose presence is so insignificant to the plot that you're practically editing him onto the cutting room floor in your own brain while you're watching him do his Snidely Whiplash thing. Homeboy's around for maybe three scenes and not a one of them is believable, the absolute worst being when he challenges Adam and says that Emma will be all over him after leaving Adam, without enough provocation and any true indication of Emma's interest. This whole folderol set up was meant to put a jealousy element into the movie that was already there and not in need of elaboration from a completely unbelievable and unnecessary side villain, who gets dropped the second the camera looks away and only returned back later to be literally left hanging, looking around, wondering what the heck to do and why he's in this movie.
Then there's the subplot about Adam's relationship to his father which works to move forward some important plot points, but manages to do nothing to develop Adam's character. The father is there to provide a couple reasons for getting closer to Emma so that their relationship doesn't stay static, but eventually the father gets regulated to "Well if you love her fight for her" territory. Seriously this movie spent more time ignoring its own actual premise than working through it.
Also, this couple actually wants each other forever from nearly every frame after the long expository flashbacks, so most of the movie is a matter of waiting around for Emma to come around. This could be frustrating but to be fair, so is being in that situation. To be realistic, the Emmas of our lives tend not to come around, and so this movie ultimately ends up playing off like the protracted pre-sleep wish fulfillment fantasy of the recent relationship reject trying to convince himself, "She'll come around eventually.... she'll come around eventually.... she'll come around eventually..." This is one of those movies that had just enough elements that it could have become about a million other interestingly realized movies, but the actual movie it resulted in is hardly worth saving. There's even one of those rom-com final lines before the relationship is consummated that was engineered for some nonexistent much better other movie to become a classic of heart-thumping cinema, but was unfortunately left in this movie instead.
--PolarisDiB