She's the One

Plot synopsis:
The film tells the story of Irish-Catholic Fitzpatrick brothers, Mickey (Edward Burns) and Francis (Mike McGlone) and the tribulations of love, family and betrayal. Mickey is a New York City blue-collared taxi driver, unhappy over an act of infidelity committed by Heather (Cameron Diaz), his ex-fiancée. Francis is a white-collared Wall Street stock investor, who unknown to his wife, Renee (Jennifer Aniston), is having an affair.During weekends, Mickey and Francis visit their parents who live on Long Island. Their mother is never seen on screen, while they have better time interacting with their father, Frank (John Mahoney), whom is a emotionally bereft conservative man as well as an old-school sexist and a bigot whom takes them out fishing on his motorboat, but refuses to let women on board due to family tradition. Frank always gives Mickey and Francis advice to live out their lives any way they can and to always go for what drives them to succeed.While driving his cab one day, Mickey picks up Hope (Maxine Bahns), a young woman and NYU art student with whom he becomes infatuated and impulsively marries that same week despite knowing her only a few days. Mickey and Hope show up one evening at Francis and Renee's apartment to inform them of their quickie marriage. This causes consternation for his brother, largely because he was not asked to be best man at the wedding. Mickey moves in with Hope, but later becomes disillusioned with aspects of her liberal and free-spirited lifestyle, including frequent power cuts in their ramshackle apartment.Francis is also having problems in his marriage. He is concerned that he is being unfair to Heather, his mistress, the very same woman Mickey left, by continuing to stay with Renee. At the same time, Renee's family, especially her younger sister Molly (Amanda Peet) suggests the problem with Francis' lack if interest in her is that he may be gay, so she has Mickey and his father confront him about it. He denies being gay, but admits to being unfaithful.Meanwhile, Francis' arrogance leads him to take potshots at his brother for the apparent lack of forward progression in his life with his new wife, while Francis argues with Heather about her own sexual infidelity with a much older man referred to as "Papa".One day, Mickey picks up Heather in his cab and goes up to her apartment to retrieve a television that belonged to him during their relationship. Heather responds by demanding Mickey's watch, which she purchased as a gift. Mickey relents, which she implies she wants more from him, but he does not reciprocate, instead reminds her of her affair, and her previous profession. Throughout all this, Mickey and Francis' father offers more egoistical and selfish advice to them. Then Frank learns, during a fishing trip with the church's pastor, that his supposedly highly religious wife hasn't been to Church Mass in months.On a visit to his mistress's apartment, Francis learns that Mickey and Heather have recently met. Francis makes an unexpected visit to his brother's apartment and questions Mickey about his visit with Heather. They get into an argument over whether or not Mickey had sex with Heather. Later, Mickey discovers that she is the woman Francis has been having an affair with. The revelation escalates to an argument in their parents' home, during a birthday dinner for their father. In an attempt to settle the dispute, Frank takes both Francis and Mickey outside and ties boxing gloves on each, with the intent of having them fight out their differences. Mickey proves the victor.Eventually, Francis confronts Renee about his affair and files for divorce, in order to marry Heather. When Mickey finds out about the impending marriage, he informs Francis that Heather was once a prostitute during her college days. This causes Francis to get cold feet and it angers Heather. She tells Mickey that she thought that he didn't have a problem with her prior choice of employment, and Mickey says that he doesn't, but Francis may, and that he has a right to know.Meanwhile, Hope has already dropped a bomb on Mickey: she is moving to Paris very soon to attend art school and Mickey is not sure about whether or not to join her. On a visit to the bar where Hope works, Mickey has a talk with Connie (Leslie Mann), one of Hope's co-workers, who claims to have had a "special relationship" with Hope before the marriage. This troubles Mickey so much that he begins to avoid Hope. Later, Hope tells Mickey that she is unsure if he should come to Paris after all and admits to having a "semi-lesbian affair" with Connie some years back. As a result, Mickey and Hope's relationship appears to be about to break up.Due to Francis' indecision over marriage in light of the news that Heather was a prostitute, Heather decides to leave him and marry "Papa", the wealthy older man she has been seeing concurrently while she was with Francis. When Francis threatens to tell Papa that Heather was a prostitute, Heather tells Francis that Papa was "her best customer". He then calls Renee in hopes of getting back together with her. But she is already in another relationship with Scott Sherman, a overweight mutual acquaintance whom Francis had made fun of in an earlier scene.In the final scenes of the film, Mickey and Francis meet with their father at his house where the distraught Frank tells them that their mother had just left him the previous day and has run off with a dry-cleaning store owner whom she has been having an affair with for several months. Unsure about everything now, Frank finally apologizes to Mickey and Francis for giving them bad advice about life and love when his own wife was cheating on him behind his back. As a result, the three men decide to go out fishing aware that despite the failure of their love lives, they will always have each other. As they prepare the motorboat to cast off, only Mickey decides it would be better if he tried to have one last talk with Hope before she leaves America. Only their father has arranged a surprise guest - Hope. The movie ends with Hope asking to drive the boat, but Frank, aware that women are not allowed on board, says it is too soon for that.

Tags: romantic

Review:
The characters are well developed, Tom Petty's sound track is very good and there are the gorgeous gals of course (Diaz, Anniston, Bahns), but there's more to it.
Edward Burns is to be admired for directing this (in places) wonderful "slice of life", examining the intricacies of relationships, the ideas of romantic love and sibling rivalry.
The father and younger brother (an impressive performance from both the actors) display (initially) a rampant misogynist, a far cry from the character Edward Burns plays.The cast is rounded off with a very good Jennifer Aniston as the cheated-against wife, who has her "needs", not fulfilled sexually, a beautiful and contained Maxine Bahns and a vulnerable and (at the same time) brittle and almost defiant Cameron Diaz.It's a good movie, with good acting, and good lines.As in all Romantic Comedies, the story is quite predictable.
I thought it was entertaining as all hell and John Mahoney would be worth the whole movie, but doesn't need to be as all the other characters come through vibrantly.
That entire scenario was priceless and hysterical.A great film that shows Ed Burns really is a talent as a writer and director.
This is a great movie that gets better every time you watch it.
Since she was cast in the earlier "The Brothers McMullen", also written and directed by Edward Burns, I assume there is a friendship that misdirected that decision.Some of the characters don't play out quite right.
The role of the brother, played my Mike McGlone, is well acted, but the writing made that character a little too two dimensional.
If you like character and plot-driven movies, this is a worthwhile way to spend some time..
The majority of the film critics felt that Burns did not make a new movie with "She's the One" but merely an extension of "The Brothers McMullen", on the contrary.
This movie is all about great interaction between Ed Burns, Mike McGlone, and John Mahoney.
I liked this film far more than The Brothers McMullen, and I'm expecting great things from Mr. Burns in the future..
This movie is on Comedy Central all the time and is worth watching just for these amazing women, not to mention it really is a good movie.
If you're looking for an Oscar-winning, thought-provoking intellectual film, like one other person obviously was, then you're an idiot and you should not have watched this movie in the first place.
I thought the movie was great even before I looked at the box and found out Edward Burns wrote, directed, and starred in the film.
That just left me speechless.The acting was seamless since the characters became so real you almost forgot it was a movie you were watching.
If you want to see a funny, honest, amusing comedy where characters talk like REAL people--this is the movie to see!
Francis is in an unhappy marriage with Renee (Jennifer Aniston) and cheats with Mickey's ex Heather.Writer/director Edward Burns tries to make a big move up after the success of his indie debut.
This movie is so funny, I laughed out loud many times, The dialog is great and very true to life.
Basically, we found the plot disturbing.The problem is that the movie is billed as a romantic comedy, yet several of us saw very little romance in it plus we did not find a single line in it funny enough to be a comedy.
If you are looking for a sweet romantic comedy to watch for a nice evening with your family, this movie likely is not it.
In this case, he is waffling on his true love, while his brother, married to Jennifer Aniston, is cheating on her with Cameron Diaz -- definitely an interesting question of taste -- and Diaz is a former girlfriend of Burns.
Following THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN, director Burns likes to follow closely on relationships between men and women...
As in The Brothers McMullen, Edward Burns displays his talent for dynamic and funny dialogue.
The story isn't quite as good but the acting of Mike McGlone, John Mahoney and Burns himself raises the movie to a higher level.
I am ashamed in American viewers when I see people rip on a movie like this...sorry there are no car chases, no guns and no sploshins for the typical miopic, immature american viewer that has had their senses dulled by the likes of Jerry Springer and Wrestling...this is an actual film about people, love and family brilliantly directed by Ed Burns (the Brothers McMullen) and starring Burns, the delightful Maxine Bahns, Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz and the vastly underrated John Mahoney.
As such, Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston's characters are probably some of the better written and most believable characters in the movie.
I think the only good moments that Ed Burns has are from the scenes where he's with Cameron Diaz.
And in the end, these characters are not written to be people, they were written to be ideas and archetypes to be used for commentary.However, having said that, some of the dialogue is pretty entertaining and some of the repartee between the characters are fun to listen to.The thing is though, funny dialogue doesn't give character depth.Not bad as far as a romantic comedy goes, but definitely not home run movie..
When she tells Mike's character that she doesn't know if she could survive another of his "down cycles" it is as great as anything from Friends.I'm a big fan of both Ed and New York, and this movie shows how wonderful both can be..
I take a liking to Mike McGlone's character, Francis, and his  happenings, especially the one's with Aniston.
I recommend the film for people who like small, funny, slice-of-life, love stories.
Though I'm a guy, there is still something for everyone: Ed Burns and Mike McGlone for the ladies and Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston for the guys.
She's The One barely survives on a combination of these, two wholesome characters (intriguing performances by Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston), and a totally delightful and magical musical score by Tom Petty.
I then learned that Petty put out an entire soundtrack worth of material for this film, and after listening to the soundtrack I decided to watch the movie so that I could have a better feel for what inspired the soundtrack--if it did at all.That said, I didn't exactly feel like the soundtrack and the movie went together, but I can kind of see how they do.
It has a romantic comedy feel throughout, but there is an element of the film that just makes it a more heavy movie than the standard chick flick.
There's probably nothing life changing about this movie, but it's worth the time to see just as pure and simple escapism for a couple of hours, and an engaging story that is entertaining even if not overly powerful.
His brother Francis (Mike McGlone) is cheating on his wife (Jennifer Aniston) with the woman who broke Mickey's heart, Heather (Cameron Diaz).
There's a good bit where Ed Burns' character has to convince multiple people that he isn't gay and I thought that was funny.
You might be thinking that bad people trying to solve their problems and failing sounds funny, and it would bebut it's never done in the far-out way you would expect in a comedy.
I just found it incredibly hard to cheer or be interested in these characters when they don't feel like real people; they don't really seem to have dreams or ambitions and can barely deal with the situation they've been given.
Plot In A Paragaph: A look at the love life of Mickey (Edward Burns) and Francis (Mike McGlone), two Irish/American brothers.
John Mahoney steals the movie for me (Yes even away from Aniston in THAT scene) he is superb, Amanda Peet and Frank Vincent are both good, as was Maxine Bahns as Hope..
I really liked the characters in this film Hands down, my favorite was John Mahoney as the father.
I also really liked the brother relationship between Edward Burns and Mike McGlone.
While I thought there was some good dialogue, it could not save the film from becoming just another typical 90's dramatic comedy about relationships.Although I did enjoy this movie and always put it on whenever it I see it on HBO, this is not Edward Burns' best film.
Go see Brothers McMullen, Sidewalks of New York, and the Groomsmen for better Edward Burns films.
In this movie, even the good guys (including Jennifer Aniston's character) smoke, and we found it to be unrealistic and distracting.It seemed to be just one long "sickaret" commercial.Can't help but wonder who was given how much money to have almost every actor in the movie smoke..
Though in general I like Ed Burns more as an actor than as a filmmaker, I thought Sidewalks of New York had a certain something to it, and I had sort of wanted to see this film for a while (took me eight years, so obviously I wasn't hankering to see it too badly).
I've long enjoyed the movie's soundtrack  completely composed by genius Tom Petty  and last week I finally got to see what all those songs were about.She's the One is a typical Burns ensemble piece where New Yorkers bitch about their love lives.
Mickey, though he won't admit it, has issues with his ex Heather (Cameron Diaz), issues that he will admit to with his money-hungry, status-driven brother Francis (Mike McGlone), and maybe some issues with his dad (John Mahoney), although they don't seem to trouble him all that much.
Like Sidewalks, this film is really less about an individual character (though it's more centered on Mickey than Sidewalks was on Burns' character) and more about the problems we all have in relationships.
As it turns out, none of the relationships in this film are healthy, though Mickey more or less gets along with his new wife Hope (Maxine Bahns).
Oh, and for color, and the reason I ended up watching the film in the first place, brother Francis is unhappily married to Renee (Jennifer Aniston  ah, now it all makes sense to you).What this movie really should be called is Ed Burns has Issues.
Burns seems to be saying through this film `You know, this whole love thing stinks, and you're gonna get burned.'Burns himself is okay but he plays his essential core character  the guy who's okay but was burned in the past and is perpetually on guard now (see also Sidewalks, Life or Something Like It, etc.) McGlone gives Francis just the right smarmy yuppie/slick urban edge, making it really hard to like him.
Outstanding love comedy that illustrated what a very good quality combination of story,screenplay,script,directing and cinematography can do for a movie despite a very modest budget!Another great filmaking school example here.The acting was ok but the actor's performances were magnified by very good character development,very adeptly handled by the writers and the director.For INTELLIGENT fans of the love comedy genre,this movie is one of those that you wish you could see the movie's characters again soon as the movie ends.That is a sign of a great film.Although I must warn you that people who do not like intelligent films will not really like this film that much.Thus the general audience's low rating for this classic film.What can I say but INTELLIGENCE is only for the few!Also,not for the ones who casually use the bandwagon term "chick flick" which I refuse to use because women do not have a monopoly on romance movies.It is men who create the greatest romance films and litterature so they belong to men as well.But it takes INTELLIGENCE to understand what I mean so I leave it at that.To those on my level,enjoy this great love relationship plot movie......
For the people that do bash this movie, i get the sense that they don't like this genre of film.
So if i turned on the TV and saw Jennifer Aniston and cameron diaz i would turn it off thinking oh my god not another picture perfect, but it caught my eye and i had to watch the whole thing.
Definitely a must see from a very brilliant young directer and great actor Edward Burns.Best romantic comedy next to chasing amy ( nobody can do it better then Kevin Smith ).
Edward Burns is a brilliant writer & director and the gorgeous Maxine Bahns gives a great performance.
This is one of the best romantic/comedy films I have ever watched.
Take it from me, who likes comedy/romance films, WATCH THIS!!.
Thrilling story, great characters, awesome performances by Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston..
She's The One was his best film, in my opinion, and if you rent it, you'll get to see the young, promising actresses Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston, as well as Frasier's dad without his cane!
Frankly, it should have been her character, Renee that the two brothers fought over rather than Cameron Diaz's character of Heather (please!) I liked the dialogue, and would like to see more of Ed Burn's acting, directing and writing.
Some people have criticised the way this film is directed but my own complaint is the way it's produced and it's probably not a valid complaint because it's produced unreservedly for a female audience , though strangely enough male voters on this site have awarded it a slightly higher mark than females Apart from being the kind of movie that twenty something females can get together and watch on a Friday night with a bottle of wine it's difficult to understand the thinking behind it .
In this type of movie people in general and men in particular never really act as they would in real life and while I'm not a fan of " social realism " in movies neither am I a fan of romantic comedies / chick flicks either Not to be to negative I did smile at at the line :" She looks like she came from an island " " Yeah Rhode Island ".
It was interesting to read the comments in late 2001, pro and con, about this movie since it's been out for awhile.As a woman old enough to be Ed Burns' mother, I guess I have a slightly different take on his films.
As a woman, you feel a part of their group because they include you and not because there is any type of equality thing going on.That's what watching an Ed Burns movie is like for me.
It is funny, it is clever, it is acted to great strength to make it the great movie it is.Edward Burns is the man at the center he has just gotten married without his brother being there, and his new wife is adjusting to the family.
Cameron Diaz plays the funny former girlfriend of Burns who is now seeing his brother for the occasional get together.While all this is going on, there are plenty of laughs and moments of truth to be seen.
Edward Burns not only takes on the starring role, he also wrote and directed this well crafted, modern look at male/female relationships (props are also due to Burns as a co-producer for the casting of the eye-candy trio of Maxine Bahns, Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz).
That dichotomy looms large here and quickly moves to the center of the plot, replacing the otiose attempt at examining the relationship of the two brothers (played by Burns and Mike McGlone) and their father (John Mahoney).
this movie has clever, witty writing and great character development.
People like Mike McGlone make the movie, its almost as if the part was written just for him.
I'm probably unusual among viewers of this film in that I saw one of Edward Burns' other self-penned directorial efforts first, 1998's "No Looking Back." But despite the presence of a more star-studded cast with welcome additions like Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz and John Mahoney, this is clearly the inferior of the two films in my opinion.
Oh my, the movie all in all fails to show some direction or surprise elements, the end is foreseeable and quite conventional.But the part that I really liked was the actresses, especially Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz.
I got this movie because I like Jennifer Aniston on "Friends"and wanted to see it!
MIKE McGLONE is fine as his financially solvent but mentally challenged brother who works on Wall Street but is hopelessly in love with a trashy blonde, CAMERON DIAZ, in another one of her bubble-gum roles.None of it rises above the level of a good TV script and the language is pretty salty throughout, dealing as it does with SEX almost exclusively.
While it's not as good as Burns' brilliant 'The Brother's McMullen', it's still a good movie.
I can definitely understand why some people would like this film, since it certainly is well-made, but it just didn't work for me..
But I think it is a wonderful comedy with some great things to say about relationships and life.A big part of why I like it is the writing, which strikes me as natural, believable, and unforced--which is certainly aided by the acting performances.
In the film she became Burns' wife, while in real life they were dating.
I don't think Burns will ever become known as a great writer/director, but his films are honest and in that he has a lot going for him..
What's to say about a film in which Cameron Diaz is one of the better actors?
Overall, I thought the movie was pretty good, I liked the acting, they all seem very natural with one exception, Ed Burns.
I liked when she says: "I would rather live in the back of this cab than let something like rent get in the way of our romance".Also Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz were great.