Dir. Michael Ian Black, US, 2007, 90 mins
Cast: Jason Biggs, Isla Fisher, Joe Pantoliano, Joanna Gleeson, Michael Weston
Review by Michelle Moore
Black makes his feature writing and directing debut with this flick, which from the start does have a romantic feel, with the song lyrics “I love being in love. I don’t care what it does to me”. Is it possible to look across a crowded room and find the person you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with? Very doubtful, but this film will have you believing it might be.
We join the film as Anderson (Biggs) proposes to his girlfriend who drops dead, possibly of embarrassment, before she can yes. In fact, the way he makes a fool out of himself for the girl he loves is sweet; there is a poem that is especially lovely.
However, a year on Anderson’s still moping, so his friend (Weston) convinces him to ask a girl out; Anderson goes one better by proposing to a waitress, Katie (Fisher). She shocks herself and Anderson by saying yes; she’s looking for an excuse to ditch her orthodontist boyfriend. The two begin to learn love works in mysterious ways where even the most imperfectly matched people can find perfect love.
As we don’t know much about Anderson or Katie and they don’t know anything about each other, we get to know tham as they get to know each other. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to learn, and what we do discover isn’t interesting.
The film has some hilarious elements to it. Their first date is spent on a rubbish tip and from the moment she rides to his house in a battered car you can tells things aren’t going to be smooth sailing. You’ll be jolted out your seat when Anderson is nearly knocked down by the car, until it breaks…but then hits him anyway. When they get up to the flat and Katie moves in on him, he’s nervous and spits toothpaste in her eye…how romantic. A scene on a bus, where they assume a woman is pregnant and proceed to touch her ‘bump’ might have you spitting out your drink,when she informs them: “I’m NOT pregnant!”
There are scenes that will have you worried, like how strange Anderson’s parents are; they call each other mummy and daddy, and do some other odd things. Jason Biggs always seems to end up with strange fathers; remember American Pie? Katie’s family are as bad. Her father’s in prison until he hears his ‘baby bear’ is getting hitched and he does a runner.
As the movie progresses you wonder whether Black knows how to finish it, culminating in a scene where the wedding party is in jail, and Katie points a gun in the air shouting “I don’t know what I’m doing.” When the jokes run slow in the last half hour, romance takes over. After a romantic ceremony in the same Atlantic City Chapel Katie’s parents married in, the film concludes with everyone getting arrested, again!
This is a half decent movie where you can’t help wanting to find out how it ends. If you liked Jason Biggs in American Pie and Loser or Isla Fisher in Wedding Crashers, you’ll love this flick.
