Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that the movie includes some strong and crude language. Characters drink, smoke, and have sex.
Families who watch this film may want to discuss how it compares to other romantic comedies. What makes a good one? What are some of the trappings of the genre? How does this one compare?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Bungling and predictable, A LOT LIKE LOVE actually starts out looking like it will challenge romantic comedy formula, only to hammer it home insistently. Funky girl Emily (Amanda Peet) and nice boy Oliver (Ashton Kutcher) meet less-than-cute on a plane (they use the bathroom for a brief, apparently wordless mile-high-clubby tryst), part for years at a time, repeatedly reconnecting and reevaluating their sex-buddy friendship. Throughout these encounters, their banter ranges from cryptic to exasperating, as they coyly (or childishly) hold back from making obvious declarations of love or self-understanding.
Though Oliver really likes Emily, he accepts what seem to be her terms, that they remain friends. His life plan is to become rich (he sells diapers on the internet during the dot-com boom). Though Emily appears "independent" and unhappy (marked by her edgy outfits, drinking, and cigarette smoking), it soon emerges that her life plan is to find Mr. Right. Structured according to Emily and Oliver's interactions, the film shows very little of their separate lives, except to note their other relationships (with stereotypical "best friends," quirky family members, and other lovers who "just don't understand" them).
The primary disappointment is not that A LOT LIKE LOVE is yet another uninspired vehicle for the gloriously fearless Peet, though it is that. Instead, it is the film's lack of nerve, as it abandons its premise (the non-romance at the center of a romantic comedy) for a generic final act that places Emily firmly inside the girl-in-need-of-rescue plot. While Oliver's trajectory is vaguely noble (already humble, he learns to be gracious too), Emily's maturation involves becoming the artist she didn't know she wanted to be (he gives her a camera and she becomes a photographer, specifically manipulating shutter speed, as if to indicate her desire for control) and the good-girl partner she didn't know she needed to be. Not only must Peet survive her costar's irrepressible Ashton-ness, but also a plot that calls for her to walk into a glass door as comic climax. This makes literal the film's own lack of vision.
Families who enjoy this movie may also enjoy Ashton Kutcher's other romantic comedies (Guess Who, Just Married), or more intelligent "mismatched" couples films, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Annie Hall, It Happened One Night, or Bringing Up Baby.
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Sexual ContentCharacters have sex on an airplane, then have sex-buddy relationship. |
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LanguageStrong and crude language. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoSmoking and drinking. |
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