Rumor Has It... - PG-13
Common Sense Note
Parents should know that the film's premise has a young woman sleeping with a man whom she believes might be her father. Though he insists this is physically impossible, she worries about it more than once. Characters drink and smoke repeatedly (stereotypical signs of decadence).
Families can discuss Sarah's consistently bad decisions concerning her fiancé, her family, and her one-night stand. Though she says she's "scared," how does her "search for herself" end up hurting other people? How would Sarah's entire situation be different if only she had talked with her father first?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Awkward and unfunny, RUMOR HAS IT... follows the romantic travails of obit writer and aspiring journalist Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston). Feeling like she doesn't "fit," she thinks her family is the source for The Graduate, she seeks the man who slept with her mother and grandmother, imagining he might be her father.
The occasion for her search is her sister Annie's (Mena Suvari) wedding, for which Sarah and her fiancé Jeff (Mark Ruffalo) fly from New York to Pasadena. Never thinking just to ask her father, Earl (Richard Jenkins), about her dead mother's past, Sarah instead imagines her mom was happiest with this other man, as they spent a weekend in Mexico just before her marriage to Earl.
While Sarah's grandmother, the chain-smoking, haughty Katherine Richelieu (Shirley MacLaine), offers comic moments ("You want more out of life," she snaps at whiny Sarah, "Get in line, kid"), the movie pretty much abandons her once Sarah finds the model for Benjamin Braddock, Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner). Now an internet millionaire, he assures her that he can't be her dad (as he suffered "blunt testicular trauma" during a soccer game 39 years ago), and they promptly get drunk and sleep together.
The film perks up briefly when Beau -- proclaiming that he's enchanted by his single "pretty spectacular" night with Sarah -- pursues her to Pasadena. Here he has a little sidewalk encounter with Katherine. Unimaginatively accompanied by Ennio Morricone's spaghetti Western theme, she stalks out to confront her erstwhile lover, and then, pfft. The film retreats from this sparky relationship, so full of raw resentment and regrets, to refocus on the terminally dull Sarah.
Families who like this movie should see The Graduate if you haven't already. Or you might want to watch Rob Reiner's more successful romantic comedy, When Harry Met Sally... or Misery, which won an Oscar for Kathy Bates, who appears very briefly in this movie.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentAwkward, inappropriate, ill-advised sexual situations (a young woman sleeps with someone she initially thinks might be her father); crude remarks by her grandmother; references to condoms and " testicular trauma." |
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LanguageGrandmother repeatedly uses bad language (" bastard, "d--k '" ," f-word). |
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Social BehaviorNewly enaged woman seeks out man she thinks might be her father, and sleeps with him (he also slept with her mother and grandmother). |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoMuch smoking by grandmother; sex initiated by two drunk characters; social drinking by everyone, wih specific referencs to vodka and other liquors. |
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