Product: Someone Like You [VHS] (2001)
Rating: 3.0
This is a little to bland for my taste
Someone Like You is a romantic comedy that tries to be innovative but winds up being about as bland as they come. This doesn't mean that it's an unpleasant way to spend an evening. It means it's forgettable. It is like one of those people you meet at a party who is nice enough to be around but whose face you can't remember the next day.Romantic comedy is a tricky genre. If you stick closely to the formula, you risk making a totally uninspired movie. If you tinker too much with the recipe, you risk losing the audience because it is a subject where people tend to want to see the same story over and over again, only slightly differently each time. Occasionally, there's a successful variation, as in 1997's delightful romp, My Best Friend's Wedding, where girl met boy, girl lost boy, girl tried everything to get boy back but lost him anyway. Such movies don't endanger the formula, though, because we almost always want the couple to wind up together.Someone Like You's device is the old love triangle. Jane [Ashley Judd] works for a New York TV talk show. The show is about to go national, and Jane's one of the people responsible for making this transition a success. She's a girl who's looking for a long term relationship, and she is appalled by Eddie [Hugh Jackman], a coworker who makes conquest after conquest with female members of the staff. She seems to be the lone holdout. Ray [Greg Kinnear] arrives as the show's new producer. He seems so gentle and understanding, and Jane is instantly attracted to him. Soon, they begin a serious affair and decided to move in together. Just as Jane is about to move out of her apartment, Ray gets cold feet. Angry and hurt, Jane impulsively agrees to move in with the notorious Eddie, hoping to have her revenge on Ray. Jane and Eddie vow to be platonic with each other. Will Jane get Ray back? Or will Eddie show her he has another side to him, one that's much more appealing?There is a subplot in the movie that might have seemed hilarious on paper. It doesn't translate well to the screen. While watching TV documentaries about the mating habits of various mammals, Jane learns that a bull will not mate with a cow he's already done it with. He needs a new cow. In one of the great leaps for sociology and anthropology, Jane concludes that this behavior explains why men cannot be faithful. Using a pen name, she writes about it in a column for a magazine, and, this being a movie, she's syndicated in three hundred newspapers a week later. This causes a lot of problems for Jane. It's also trouble for the audience because the idea is so fundamentally weak. If this is the reason men can't be faithful, then it's a natural phenomenon, so why are we still worrying about it?As has often the case in recent movies of this type, a supporting role steals the show. Ellen Barkin plays Diane Roberts, the host of the talk show. She's ambitious, self-centered and wise. She's also very funny and a lot more interesting than the main characters. Her performance alone is worth giving She's the One a look.