Didn't quite do it for me

Rating: 7/10 (24 August 2007)

First of all, I'm delighted that a film like this got made at all. It doesn't comfortably sit in any mainstream genre - it's downright quirky, and you don't often see the cash forthcoming for a movie without a defined audience. I liked this story.
Second, I'm beginning to think that Will Ferrell is an actor with an astonishing range. I've tended not to like much of what he's done in the past, but I'm coming to understand that this is because I have intensely disliked the characters he's played, and he's played them very well. His character here is much more sympathetic and has an interesting development curve: starting as a cypher (as his written character is, of course, at the start) he fleshes out nicely throughout the film. There is scope for a great deal of subtlety in his performance, and Ferrell delivers.
Maggie Gyllenhaal gives an attractive performance in a slightly underwritten role, and Dustin Hoffman delivers an OK performance in a very underwritten role. Queen Latifah does well in a role which is hardly there at all.
I don't know if Emma Thompson's performance was what was written, what the director specified, or what she judged was needed - it may be exactly what was intended but, if so, what was intended (and whoever intended it), it was awful. Twitchy, neurotic, depressed - not a character it was easy to feel any sympathy with. And I didn't.
My main problem is that I never fully engaged with the story because I never really felt that it did as much with the concept as I wanted it to. From the charming quirky start, by the final act I felt it had moved into the mainstream and become not so much predictable as conventional. The originality of plot and delivery at the start wasn't sustained through the film's full length.
For all that, I spent most of the running time with a smile on my face, and for all the right reasons.