Rough Start, got better

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2007)

I felt Camereron Diaz's character was far too cardboard for words. She starts out as a cold career woman and pretty much stays that way for at least half the movie. Kate Winslet is also handed a cutout for a character, but it isn't nearly as well defined. Hers is more of a cypher, a woman that wanted to do more, but didn't. I gotta hand the acting award to Winslet, she took her role and made her a likable person, with subtlety and depth. I never got to like Diaz in this. At best she warmed up into an "ordinary" emotionally developed person.
Of course, the whole film revolves around the inside life of writers and of film-making. So as they were dropping terms like "meet cute", all I could think of was that they had just done a "meet cute" by describing it. Overall, it was a too self-conscious and formulaic rom-com. The elements were showing throughout. However, in the end, the romance does shine through and I liked it. Jude Law in particular exercises a thin role into something worth seeing.