Product: Someone Like You [VHS] (2001)
Rating: 3.0
If you love romantic comedies...run.
I am a connoisseur of romantic comedies, and I read and enjoyed the overdone fluff that was Animal Husbandry, so I must say that I was kind of looking forward to seeing Someone Like You. It stared the usually enjoyable Ashley Judd and The Delicious Hugh Jackman, so I couldn't pass it up, right?The plot is fairly simple: Jane Goodale falls for Ray, Ray dumps Jane after telling her he loves her and wants to move in with here, leaving Jane brokenhearted and without an apartment. Desperate, Jane moves in with Eddie, a chain-smoking womanizer with a GREAT loft. Jane formulates a theory on why men leave women based on observed animal behaviors, called the New Cow Theory. Things with her theory get out of control, and Jane suddenly falls in love with Eddie.And I do mean SUDDENLY. I'm going to rant a little about this movie's classification as romantic comedy. As anyone who is a fan of the romantic comedy knows, it's code for Modern Day Fairy Tale. It doesn't have to be something that would happen to real people. But if the characters in the movie believe it, it doesn't matter. Let's face it; romantic comedies are not about surprises. They are predictable. We know that the two main characters are going to fall in love and kiss at the end of the movie. This was a movie that was based on a non-romantic comedy, and it shows. Having two people kiss at the end doesn't automatically make it romantic. It's not about the kiss. It's about Everything That Leads to The Kiss. Getting there really is the fun. It's the First Commandment of the romantic comedy. Someone on this project forgot that.Okay, I'm done.That said, I should have passed it up. Someone Like You gets off to a bad start, featuring a voice over by Ms. Judd (I warn you, voice-overs are the main mode of plot movement in this flick). It was more than obvious that poor Ashley didn't believe a word she was saying, and that's pretty much what happened through the whole movie. No one was buying into the story, and the romantic leads were all wrong for each other. Judd and Greg Kinnear? Yuck. Of course, I don't like Greg anyway, but still, yuck.Someone like you isn't ALL bad. It does have its moments. There was, of course, The Delicious Hugh Jackman.. While I am not a die-hard fan of Marisa Tomei (Jane's best friend), I must say that she was done up quite beautifully for her role, and she seems to have toned down her Rosie Perez-esque New Yorker attitude just a touch. There was also one particularly touching scene, following Jane's sister Alice's miscarriage, when Alice's husband came into the hospital room and told Alice that she was still the most beautiful woman in the world. The way they looked at each other...they bought it. And I got teary. To think, the one thing that got me teary was from a subplot that wasn't in the book at all.So I'm giving Someone Like You three stars: one for The Delicious Hugh Jackman, who is always just plain fun to watch (on so many levels...X-men anyone?); one for Ms. Tomei's well done makeup and wardrobe; and one for the eternally romantic hospital scene. All in all, it's a skipper. I'm glad I rented it first. See Say Anything, When Harry Met Sally, or Notting Hill instead.