Better than I thought, Sandra Bullock made it sweet and honest.

Rating: 7/10 (19 October 2009)

With a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy plot, "the only male stripper in Alaska", some crude jokes involving a granny, The Proposal wasn't on my watch-list in the beginning. After some terrible experience of Made of Honor or this kind of rubbish, I totally refused to see this movie.
However, when the chance actually come I saw it, and thought all the clichés are still right there, but in a forgivable way. With some good, layered performances and some honest and sweet scenes near the end, the movie is actually watchable, and with some good messages.
There were some reasons that I totally despised the idea behind the movie. A female manager in her 40s propose to a subordinate in his 20s to realize a fraud wedding? That would be disgusting. Not to mention Andrew(Ryan Reynolds) is principally what we call a big kid, that he had dysfunctional relationship with his father and could more relate to powerful females. In the movie, the justification that Andrew really loved Margaret is in their 3-year employment relationship Andrew already allowed Margaret to grow on him. Knowing all the ugly sides in the life, Andrew would be the best candidate for Margaret's husband. Right there, I got the message the movie wanted to send, that a family should be forgiving enough for the family member no matter how much they deviated from the traditions. Sometimes the point is not to accept the choice your family members made, but to accept the fact that they have the freedom to make their own choices. I, like Andrew's father, still have 1000 reasons to disagree with Andrew's marriage, but I got the message. Unfortunately these messages have to be watched very closely and heartedly to be found. That is quite a challenge if you hold the movie as a cliché to the very end.
All that was realized by Sandra Bullock's performance that in some sense worth an Oscar nomination. Her transition from the cold, mean manager to the broken soul exposed to Andrew's family was very convincing, especially in the last 15 minutes. Also, she was able to totally cover Ryan Reynolds' pale performance. Thanks to the detailed character study, the movie surpassed my expectation.
7/10.