>>REVIEW
BECAUSE I SAID SO
STARRING Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore
DIRECTED BY Michael Lehmann
Opens Friday, February 2
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Michael Lehmann, the man behind Heathers and The Truth about Cats and Dogs has directed a romantic comedy so insipid and contrived, it stings to watch.
Because I Said So revolves around Daphne (Diane Keaton), a meddling matriarch with three very different daughters. She has difficulty letting her youngest, Milly (Mandy Moore), an unhappily single (at 23!) make her own dating decisions.
In an ill-fated attempt to find the ideal man for her daughter, she creates an online profile to lure in potential mates. The ensuing interviews in a hotel lobby are meant to be funny, but they’re plain pathetic.
Enter Johnny (Gabriel Macht), the film’s sole saving grace as the sexy guitar-strumming single dad who appears to be the only main character who isn’t destined for "Overacters Anonymous." He is immediately dismissed by Daphne as a heartbreak waiting to happen, but decides to pursue Milly anyway.
Daphne’s top pick is a dreamy and successful architect, Jason (Tom Everett Scott), who implausibly meets a potential date’s mother and buys her expensive wine in the middle of the afternoon. His performance is empty and cold like the buildings he creates.
Milly is a well-meaning but bungling owner of a crazily successful catering company who never yells at her staff or burns her soufflés. When faced with two very desirable men, she decides to have her cake and eat it too, with predictable results. Moore should stick to her quasi-soulful singing and not acting. Her performance is so forced at times, that looking away was the only escape.
As the therapist sister Maggie, the Gilmore Girl’s Lauren Graham regurgitates her lines with all the zeal of a sorority sister puking up her first yukaflux binge. Strangely, for a romantic comedy aimed at women, the peripheral sisters, with their strangely silent husbands, serve as little more than locker room eye candy.
Keaton, with her remarkable past credits, falls down both literally and figuratively. Her scenes flailing about with ornate cakes that inevitably end up smashed to bits lack the right comedic timing to be even remotely funny. Woody Allen would cringe.
The dialogue is plain insulting at times and a scene in a Korean massage parlour borders on racist. From the plot to the music to the script, this movie has few redeeming qualities. |
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