This Summer's First Romantic Comedy

Rating: 6/10 (30 June 2009)

Everything in this movie may look clichéd, and you may have seen much of the same material from so many other contemporary romantic comedies – girl and boy meet, girl and boy clash, girl and boy get together under unexpected circumstances, girl and boy fly to town to meet boy's parents, girl and boy are about to get married, girl and boy have a fight and break up, girl and boy fly out of town separately only to coincidentally find each other back home and fall back in love again. But a winsome cast holds everything together and sustains many honest laughs to keep "The Proposal" from being another formulaic romantic comedy and date movie.
Sandra Bullock has been the heroine of so many romance films since 1995's "While You Were Sleeping," but here in "The Proposal," she gets to play a ruthless corporate witch. She plays Margaret, the tough book editor of a prestigious publishing firm in Manhattan, bullying everybody, including her assistant Andrew, played by Ryan Reynolds, who has also established himself as a romantic leading man in many of his recent movies. Somehow, they are smitten by each other deep down. They discover that when an immigration visa inspector (played by Denis O'Hare) declares that Margaret's Canadian visa has expired and she has not renewed it, and now he wants her to leave the country. Margaret and Andrew come up with a ruse saying that they are engaged to be married, but they don't go back to Canada. He whisks her off to Alaska.
The Alaska scenery is actually shot in the daylights of Boston and Rhode Island. Here, Andrew introduces Margaret to his parents (nicely played by Craig T. Nelson and Mary Steenburgen) and his spry "Grammie" about to turn 90 (the always reliable Betty White, 87 years young). The women immediately take a liking to Margaret and accept her as part of the family. However, the father is more cantankerous and doesn't want to see his son fly away millions of miles from home with his bride-to-be, but he warms up to his son and prospective daughter-in-law near the end of the film.
There are a lot of laughs that keep the audience rolling, and intermittently, there are scenes played with heart for good balance. No, this is not going to make movie history or win any Academy Awards, but it is a light outing for anyone who wants to fall in love, have a good laugh, or even wants their hearts touched. "The Proposal" is an enjoyable summer romance.