The fact that it's based on an old Dostoyevsky anecdote is by far the most sophisticated thing about Alex & Emma, a bland new romantic comedy from the normally much-funnier-than-this mind of Rob Reiner. The Princess Bride/When Harry Met Sally director presents us here with Alex (Luke Wilson), a neurotic New Yorker in hock with two Cuban gangsters for a $100,000 gambling debt. Said Cubans dangle Alex by his ankles outside his window and inform him that he has 30 days to pay what he owes, or else they'll come back and do a great deal of PG-13-style violence to him. Sensing impending doom, Alex decides to save time by dictating his new novel to a stenographer (Kate Hudson, here as the titular Emma). Emma comes over to his apartment every day, they argue, they share ideas, one thing leads to another, and…
In the sense that every romantic comedy more or less follows the same basic plot structure, one can't really fault Alex & Emma for being formulaic. One can, however, fault it for a variety of different reasons, perhaps the biggest being that the movie just doesn't work.Remember all those funny lines Luke Wilson had in Old School earlier this year? No, me neither. Which is not a slam against Wilson, and certainly not to say he's a bad actor; on the contrary, the just-north-of-normal geniality he oozes from every pore has carried him brilliantly through pure straight-man roles in such films as Bottle Rocket, Old School and The Royal Tenenbaums. Here, however, in his first non-ensemble role as a romantic lead, he's floundering, acting instead of reacting, straining to generate charisma that just isn't there.
Kate Hudson, too, seems stranded, which is admittedly a hell of a thing to say, because Kate Hudson is undeniably charming even in slight, forgettable pap like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Hampered by an unfortunately wan script and a stenographer's wardrobe (button-up cardigans and Pantene Brown #5 hair dye) that looks like a million-dollars-a-year screenwriter's idea of "dowdy," Hudson has brio to spare, but no one to work off of.The film's big "twist" is placing Wilson and Hudson as characters in the movie's story-within-a-story, the novel that Alex spends the bulk of the movie dictating to Emma. Thus, Alex and Emma become Adam and Anna, an English tutor and an au pair who find themselves in ‘20s-era Hamptons under the close employ of saucy French heiress Polina Delacroix (Sophie Marceau, who seems to be having more fun than anyone).
Stories intersect, fiction combines with reality, the past informs the present blah blah blah…Think of it as a Möbius strip of bad plotting: at some point in theaters this weekend, I imagine audiences becoming suddenly aware that they're sitting and watching a really inane romantic comedy about two people sitting and writing a really inane romantic comedy. Dave Eggers-style, Reiner tries to head complaints about the flimsy plot off at the pass by having Emma continually acknowledge how lame the romance Alex is trying to write is. At one point, Emma looks up from her stenography machine and asks Alex why readers would ever care whether Adam ends up with Anna, given that he's spent so much time in the book ignoring her and pining for Polina's affections instead. Well, bingo.
The single worst thing about this film is the utterly astounding prospect of Emma actually falling for Alex, who starts out by alienating her at nearly every turn. Romantic comedies in general are pretty loathsome (no bias here, nope), but the best ones - say, Amélie, or The Truth About Cats and Dogs - manage to provide some impetus for the audience wanting to see the two main characters hook up Despite All Odds™.
As it is in Alex & Emma, our hero is so dryly written that you really don't care whether he ever ends up with Emma - and you don't ever see what Emma sees in him. He's rude, he's broke (he can't afford to pay her until he actually finishes the novel), he's completely insensitive, he's in the process of being hunted down by the Cuban mafia, and she's supposed to see what in him, exactly? Can't a woman who looks like Kate Hudson do better than this guy? Given the inordinate amount of time I spend watching movies featuring wizards or ghosts or Canadian mutants with unbreakable skeletons, I assume my ability to suspend disbelief is fairly strong. Some things, however, completely stretch credibility.Given the dramatic lack of "date" movies this summer, couples should have something cute and light and funny to see with each other on a Friday night. Alex & Emma, unfortunately, isn't it.
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