i relish those rare opportunities when a talented screenwriter can make me feel like a fool .
i spent the first hour of forces of nature slowly stewing over its grim attitude towards marriage , grousing to myself about its transparently planes , trains and automobiles plot machinations , and waiting for the inevitable hollywood denouement .
this was a mass market romantic comedy , after all , a genre which has been taken over by teenagers and , even in its best days , worked hard to perpetuate the romance = infatuation paradigm .
then marc lawrence
did something wonderful , something which made the entire film click into place
: he showed me a comic love story about grown - ups .
it certainly did n't look that way from the outset , which introduces groom - to - be ben holmes ( ben affleck ) at his bachelor party , surrounded by friends and family whooping over his " last night of freedom .
" ben loves his fiancee bridget ( maura tierney ) , but the doom - and - gloom pronouncements of everyone around him have him questioning the meaning of this
' till death do you part business .
then , on an ill - fated flight from new york to his wedding in savannah , ben meets sarah lewis ( sandra bullock ) , a free - spirited woman with a string of failed careers and relationships behind her .
as transportation troubles thwart them at every turn , ben and sarah begin a three - day southward journey in which their connection grows ever stronger ,
ben seeing in sarah the chances he 's never taken and sarah seeing in ben the stability she 's never had .
forces of nature gets off to a solid enough start , setting up the characters and the situations with plenty of witty dialogue
.
ben is an ideal role for affleck 's easy - going charm , and he plays the straight - laced straight man without forced exasperation .
sandra bullock , for her part , is more loose and appealing than she has been in her
last half - dozen films combined , avoiding her recent habit of playing any semblance of character depth as moping .
the two performances -- part of a great top - to - bottom cast -- are effective and connected from the start , yet the script 's apparent sympathy with the marital horror stories ben hears makes it difficult to enjoy the romance completely .
lively and funny though it may be on a consistent basis , forces of nature leaves a bitter taste that feels like self - justification .
the kicker is that those acidic anecdotes serve exactly the opposite purpose , leading to a surprisingly emotional resolution .
forces of nature is n't about a man developing a fear of commitment ; it 's about a man learning what commitment means _ to him
_ , learning that it 's not what he thought it was .
lawrence 's script feints and dodges before reaching its happy ending , an ending which is happy because people make the choices that make the most sense .
earlier scenes that might have felt like throwaways take on more resonance , and that bitter taste sweetens into something fresh and genuine .
though one too many plot contrivances keep ben and sarah together through the film , and they do exchange the obligatory mutual character analysis of bickering screen couples , forces of nature wraps up so perfectly that you 'll end up remembering the humor and the simple wisdom .
that is , provided you 're not put off by the ridiculously busy direction of bronwen hughes .
for a brisk romantic comedy , forces of nature comes loaded with some of the most over - directed scenes of the year : teetering hand - held shots , why - not low or high angles , sweeping pans .
occasionally the hyper - real approach works , with cinematographer elliot davis creating a world of fantasy romance ; far more often , hughes refuses to let a scene be what it is , covering it with flourishes so thick you almost ca n't find what 's underneath .
a script this smart and mature deserved a more restrained director , but even hughes ' excesses ca n't spoil this unique concoction .
forces of nature may restore your faith in romantic comedy as something with the power to enchant , something that can make you happy to be proved wrong when you expect a tale for and about adolescents .
Output: P