Wait for “The Proposal” to Hit TV

I was recently dragged to a showing of The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Oh. My. God. This was the most boring, stupid, vapid rom-com I’ve seen in a while - and that says a lot when you’re talking about rom-coms. I almost can’t wait to masochistically make myself see The Ugly Truth with Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler (hands off, Heigl!) so I can compare the two: which is the worse romantic pairing with the least chemistry? Which is the most tired display of dating stereotypes? Which is the worse collection of desperate jokes? This should be a good competition, seriously.

For now, I am left to warn you about the The Proposal. Well, my mother and grandmother LOVED it and think you’re an evil fascist if you don’t. I’ll refrain from making a joke about calling me Mussolini here. Because I, nor anyone else I know in the 18-50 age range, enjoyed. If you’re above that range, give the film a shot. Maybe I’m totally missing something. But if you’re in that range, there is no reason you want to pay money to sit through this mindless fodder.

SPOILER ALERT: Why was this so painfully boring? A common complaint in romantic comedy rings perhaps its truest here: this was so dreadfully predictable. You can’t do Green Card again because it sucks without Gerard Depardieu. Sandra Bullock’s character, Margaret Tate is a shrew of aboss at a publishing firm who’s about to be deported back to Canada - but she can’t lose her amazing job because she has no other life. So she makes slave assistant Andrew (Reynolds) marry her. And the INS is after them the whole time, as they travel to Andrew’s home in Alaska to tell his parents about their engagement, and get married. You know they’re going to make it to the altar, where you know the INS will be waiting to clamp down, where you know Margaret will stop the proceedings because the marriage is a fraud, and leave Andrew at the altar to succumb to the evil INS agent. And you know Andrew will suddenly realize he does love her even though she’s a bitch and he will chase her and miss her 2.5 times before finally catching her, out of breath, and kissing her in front of a crowd who applauds. And nothing funny will happen along the way. And Bullock and Reynolds are about as believable a couple as Evan Rachel Wood and Mickey Rourke - oh, wait.

Moral of the story? This wasn’t so completely horrific that I would say leave your friend’s house if they put the DVD on. If you can watch it for free, it’s just all right, and it is a good escapist movie because it’s just so dumb. Maybe if you know you didn’t schlep to a theater and pay twelve bucks, you’ll laugh at some of the lines. And I must say, if there was one thing that sort of made the ticket worth it, it was Betty White. The woman is adorable, and is the one character that will make you laugh out loud.

June 26th, 2009 by Courtney Iseman | Posted in Reviews | (0)