I can't think of much more exciting material than digging into the creative process of an artist, finding out what makes them tick; how they dredge up their lives to create wholly original work on a blank canvas; what keys they turn to open up the floodgates of life experience and create something indelible and lasting. And how about falling in love with someone during that process, and being a direct witness to that opening of the soul?
That would be the premise of a misguided, empty and unfunny new comedy by director Rob Reiner, a long way down from his glory days of When Harry Met Sally, This is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride.
Frustrated Boston writer Alex Sheldon (Luke Wilson), in the throes of writer's block and in debt to the Cuban mob for $100,000, has thirty days to get his new book completed and secure a hefty advance from his publisher (Reiner) before the thugs return. Since they've destroyed his laptop, he hires a stenographer, one Emma Dinsmore (Kate Hudson), to take dictation. Emma, as dictated by the rules of romantic comedy, is initially repulsed by Alex, but as the novel spins its spell the two grow closer and predictably fall for each other.
The novel, told in flashbacks circa 1924, involves real events from Alex's life woven into the semi-fictional story of the character Adam Shipley (Wilson); in love with refined European beauty Polina (Sophie Marceau), in debt, vying for her affections with wealthy and elite John Shaw (David Paymer). Add to the mix a maid character, played in various ethnic guises from Swedish to German to Mexican to American (Hudson), who serves as the third player in what will become a romantic triangle that emulates a very similar one in Alex's real life.
The scenes that come to life from the pages of Alex's book are shallow, unfunny and flat. That we're asked to believe anyone would pay an advance of $125,000 for such dreck is almost forgivable.
The film, which should be a light and buoyant comedy (and it certainly strives for that balance in tone), is a claustrophobic, lifeless vehicle for two stars looking like they'd rather be somewhere else. Nearly the entire picture is confined to the stagy environment of Alex's run down, brown and gray-saturated loft, and combined with Hudson's mousy girl-next-door brown wig, gives off a distastefully sour tone. Indeed, this is the first film in memory where you convince yourself it must have been a play prior to a film, as it feels so absolutely talky and housebound. Not that this would be a bad thing if the talking going on were the least bit interesting or funny.
But Alex and Emma is all tired situation, with no fresh character. We learn virtually nothing about Alex or Emma except what the rigid confines of the situation and novel allow us to learn. There's no attempt to make them real; to make them human. Emma shows up daily to take dictation. Alex recounts the story. There's precious little in between those scenes, and there's never any sense they're falling in love. Even their apparent seduction, which consists of climbing a ladder to a conveniently placed loft bed, is absent.
In this type of romantic comedy, which makes Two Weeks Notice and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days appear masterful examples of the genre, the entire film is built on a shallow conceit, designed only to bring the unlikely couple together. Alex dictates the strained passages of his book to Emma, and they routinely banter about the validity of the plot and characters, in a tired "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" sort of point-counterpoint. I suppose this is intended to be a great "ah-ha" about the way men and women perceive love, happiness and all things literary. It gets stale after about one scene.
If you're going to rely heavily on scenes that either lie in flashbacks or in this case, fiction that comes to life, what you depart to in those scenes better have some relevance or intelligence, or at least must illuminate the "real" characters or enlighten us to some deeper truth. The prototype of this device being Karel Reisz's excellent 1981 adaptation of John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman.
What better way to do that than to get inside the head of a writer and find out what makes him tick? It's a provocative idea that's been done better just about everywhere else; particularly in an upcoming French film named Swimming Pool, which has already justly acquired an international reputation for its haunting take on the same topic.
Beyond her semi-witty repartee with Alex, Emma is a cipher. We learn precious little about her past, and what she does tell us she partially recants later when the plot requires her to be available and susceptible to Alex's charms. Only late in the film do we get a brief glimpse of her own apartment and lifestyle, which is ho-hum generic. Hudson, with her perfect comic timing and great empathy, gives us an emotional breakdown scene late in the film that's worthy of a better film, and out of place in this one.
Alex doesn't fare much better. As played by a miscast Wilson, whose touch is not exactly light and who seems uncomfortable with his slapstick scenes, he's the type of guy who might be more at home writing for Maxim magazine than giving us the next Great American Love Story. And as he recounts in painfully bad exposition (which the film apparently takes as decent, if not good writing) a thinly veiled version of his own life, the film inadvertently reveals him to be shallow, empty and not a lick creative.
The supporting cast is criminally wasted: Sophie Marceau (gorgeous as ever), David Paymer, Cloris Leachman and Rip Taylor all do what they can but are given nothing interesting to work with.
It's a tired film with one good laugh in the title of Alex's prior book: Love Means Always Having to Say You're Sorry. That wit is missing from the rest of the picture.
A washout.
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