BOTTOM
LINE:
Cute
film with a likeable cast but still bogged down by cliches and some
all-too-convenient plot points.
THE GOOD:
A romantic comedy needs a likeable cast and with Diane
Keaton leading the way, you're off to a good start. She turns in
a frantic and OCD-style performance as Daphne, the mother of three
girls. Two of the girls are doing fine with their relationships
but they youngest Milly (played by Mandy Moore) never seems to be
able to have any luck to the point where Daphne is very afraid that
Milly will become alone like her. Daphne sets a plan in action to
go through a dating site to interview prospective boyfriends for
Milly. In the process, she encounters a charming young musician
named Johnny (Gabriel Macht) who watches her initial interview procedure
at a bar he is playing at. Johnny steals one Milly's business cards
from Daphne and decides to introduce himself. And so begins a three-way
love triangle between Milly, Johnny, and Daphne's first choice Jason.
All of this is a fine setup and lends itself to some great character
moments and some cute scenes between all those involved. Of course,
there's always drama to be had, especially when all parties involved
find out what's going on and Milly suddenly realises that she had
a good shot with Johnny but wasted it by seeing Jason at the same
time. The film plays through some nice character moments between
mothers and daughters (Mandy Moore contributes much to the cuteness
as the wholesome Milly) and with the fine actors on board provides
for some genuine interaction between them.
THE
BAD: The place where this
film falls down, apart from the cliches, is a couple of way too convenient
plot points designed to push the character of Daphne to the place
she needs to go to reconcile with Milly as well as herself. Johnny's
father, Joe, goes to Milly's house looking for Johnny and inadvertanty
bumps in to Daphne. In an hour or two, Joe manages to convert the
extremely uptight, never-take-a-risk, never do anything unplanned
Daphne in to jumping in to bed with him and throwing her life upside
down. This conveniently makes Daphne re-think what she's doing with
Milly which leads to not only their reconciliation but Milly's reconciliation
with Johnny. You have to let this go to make the whole thing work
and it's pretty hard to because you'll be asking yourself, "that's
completely out of line with what's been going on for the whole film!".
At any rate, with the short running time of 90 minutes perhaps they
didn't have the budget to include a few extras scene to fill the gap.