Cast: First Rate. Script: A Crime

Rating: 3/10 (22 June 2009)

"The Proposal" has a stellar cast and a suicidal script. The script begins brilliantly: Margaret (Sandra Bullock) a master-of-the-universe publishing exec who also happens to be very beautiful, has a younger, very sexy assistant – Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) – whom she forces to marry her because her visa has expired and she's about to be deported. Sandra Bullock is fabulously, convincingly, hateful in her opening scenes. She makes the Meryl Streep character from "The Devil Wears Prada" look like a shar-pei puppy in comparison. You really want to see this character put through the wringer, that is, to grow and change in response to challenging events. Ryan Reynolds is, as ever, handsome, suave, understated, smart, and a very interesting actor. As buff as he is here, and he is very buff, (preparing for the lead in the next X-Man sequel) it's Reynolds' intelligence and acting chops that are most arresting. Reynolds is as good as the romantic comedy leads from the Golden Age; he just needs the right script to be part of a classic. The rest of the cast, with the exception of an obnoxious stripper who should have been left on the cutting room floor, is similarly brilliant: Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Denis O'hare and especially Betty White are all solid professionals who've been fantastic in other movies.
There is so much promise here – the pressures and pleasures of an older man and a younger woman; the erotic frisson of a woman boss and a hunky, male assistant, working with symbiotic intimacy over high-stakes projects, the blossoming of love in an impossible situation as two people who both love books get closer to each other, the changes a champion witch might go through as she falls in love. Andrew is given a hometown love interest, the young, blonde, Gertrude. Why did Andrew leave her and his hometown and move to New York City to work for an impossible person like Margaret? Because he loves books and literature and writing and the life of the mind, that's why. The movie could have given us ONE SCENE that showed Margaret and Andrew bonding over their love of literature – and it didn't give us even that. What a horrible wasted opportunity. As discussion boards show, many viewers felt that there was no chemistry between Andrew and Margaret. That's all the fault of the script.
Rather than pursuing the potentially fascinating routes set up by the opening scene, the script takes a nosedive into the utterly crass. A sleazy Hispanic male stripper? Margaret confessing her faults in a way that unnecessarily compromises Andrew forever in the eyes of those who mean the most to him? Several false endings that spill over into the closing credit sequence? What's going on in Hollywood? Why can it produce game, top-notch actors who are also stars and not one coherent romantic comedy script since Norah Ephron?