This movie was vapid and trite

Rating: 2/10 (9 April 2005)

Sorry, folks, but I'm getting the impression that the people on here who just loved this movie are a bunch of 16 year old girls who haven't a clue as to what makes a good movie - they just see this "really cute guy" on the screen and it's instantly SO romantic!!!
First of all, I really do love romantic movies - but well made ones. I like ones where the acting is good, the writing is not trite and amateurish, the characters are believable and likable. I like the kind of romantic movies where I actually CARE what happens to the lovers. I could not have cared less about Noah and whatever the chick's name was (i saw it last night, and i've already forgotten her name). I thought the actor who played him was hideous - he mumbled his words and basically just walked through the part. The girl was irritating as hell. I just did not see or feel ANY chemistry between them - I couldn't see what she saw in him and I certainly couldn't see what he saw in her, her personality drove me nuts. and I kept wondering - what did Noah actually do for a living to support himself as an adult? I mean, you can't renovate a house like that for FREE - and you certainly can't make a living by renovating your own house all day.
So many things didn't make sense or were so unbelievable to me:
1. Why did Noah keep showing his house, then when he had the opportunity to sell it, he kept turning the buyers down? Either decide to sell it or not, but wishy washy behavior was weak. 2. Sorry, I'm 45 years old and I have NEVER seen or known a man to pine away for years over some girl he met when he was 17 years old to the point where he becomes a drunk and has passionless relationships with other terrific women (as did Noah with the very beautiful and sweet widow, who frankly seemed to have more substance to her than his ditzy old girlfriend). I mean, REAL men move on... 3. Speaking of moving on, it didn't seem real hard for the girl (still can't remember her name) to move on to another man. And why not? He was smart, sweet, successful, mature, thoughtful, hardworking, loving, handsome - everything mature women really want. But no, the girl really wanted some apparently unemployed, immature kid with a constant hang-dog expression on his face. I mean, come on, this revealed to me that the girl was extremely immature "i love you..but I love him too!!!" Perhaps they deserved each other after all! 4. OK, we're supposed to believe that the mother was STILL crying over some day laborer guy she broke up with 25 years earlier to marry a rich, handsome, nice man? Oh, please. Were we REALLY supposed to feel sorry for her as she boo-hood into her hankie saying "boo hoo, I keep wondering what would've happened if I had married him instead of your father. Boo hoo". You wanna know what would've happened if she HAD married the day laborer? She would've have been BITCHIN in the trailer park to her husband, "you lazy, drunk A$$hole! I coulda married a rich man, but No, I had to let my "heart" lead me and now I'm poor and married to a filthy day laborer!!" Most likely, she wouldn't have had the fancy car to even drive by the mansion where the rich man she "coulda married" lived! Nor would she have had the well-dressed, Sarah Lawrence-educated daughter with her to boo hoo to.
5. Hmmm, by my calculation, her daughter was 25 years old when her mother drove her to see the laborer at work...I kept expecting to FINALLY see a twist, a surprise in the movie. I thought the mother was going to confess that the day laborer was really her daughter's father!! But no, the writer decided to have EVERY aspect of this movie 100% predictable.
I can't waste anymore time for this movie - I couldn't believe how predictable it was (hell, I figured it out while reading the DVD description!), how i didn't care about any of the characters, how trite the dialog was, a la "Do you think our love can make miracles happen?", how bad the acting was...
Hey, I'm a softy as much as the next woman - movies like Casablanca, My Dog Skip, The Enchanted Cottage, Big Fish, Mr. Hollands Opus make me cry and cry. But this movie was not even SAPPY, just CRAPPY.