Metro Pulse/Movie Guru/Someone Like You

Movie Guru Rating:
Bad Karma (2 out of 5)

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In so many ways, Someone Like You is nothing like a good movie

by Zak Weisfeld

It's spring. And inexorably we are drawn to romantic comedies.

We prepare, we enter the theater filled with hope and excitement—somehow believing that this one will be different. This one will make us laugh, make us love it, and love us back. And each time, as the lights come back up, we're left sitting there, our mouths dry, our stomachs aching with emptiness. And stupid, stupid, stupid.

We knew this was going to happen. Knew that this one would be just like all the rest—self-absorbed, humorless, condescending, inane, cruel even. But we should know better and so no matter how angry we are at the movie, we know it's not them. It's us. We should know not to see any movies released between the Academy Awards and Memorial Day—unless they're subtitled. But we can't help ourselves. It's so sad. We're so sad.

The only solace is that we can still recover. There's still a chance that we could become good people and have fulfilling lives. Someone Like You will always suck, and hopefully will receive a box office drubbing for its trouble.

Like a really bad girlfriend, Someone Like You's problems are myriad, and well hidden beneath a perky, appealing exterior. On the surface, a movie involving a romantic triangle between Ashley Judd, Greg Kinnear and Hugh Jackman seems diverting enough. The principals are engaging, pleasant to look at and, perhaps even talented. And the scenario, while not exactly groundbreaking, seems workable. But underneath it's something else entirely—a destructive, inhumane and debasing piece of work that should not be shown to children.

Ashley Judd plays Jane Goodale (pronounced Goodall—yes, it's on purpose and no, it isn't funny), the youngest, most laid back, skinniest, least Jewish talent-booker in all of Manhattan. All is well in Jane's DKNY/Kate Spade world until she meets Ray, the new executive producer for the talk show where Jane books talent. Ray (Greg Kinnear at his laziest and least interesting) is a nice guy. And Jane falls for him hard. But, of course, Ray's not really a nice guy. And Jane's heart gets broken. While recovering, she moves in with womanizing co-worker Eddie (Hugh Jackman, effortlessly shaming all American men). Along the way, Jane becomes a wildly sought-after columnist, breaks a heel, and is shocked to discover condoms in the bathroom of a single man. And the rest is, as they say, romantic comedy.

Except that Someone Like You is neither. It's sloppily directed, atrociously written, and it feels almost epic in length despite the fact that it's little more than 90 minutes long.

But Someone Like You's most grievous sin against the romantic comedy genre is the fact that, with the occasional exception of Hugh Jackman, none of the characters are even tolerable for more than a minute or so, let alone likable. Oh, Ashley Judd is certainly cute, leaping around a loft kitchen in her panties, and Greg Kinnear has some really well-tailored suits, but they are even less interesting or engaging together than they are apart. And apart, they are the kind of people one would studiously avoid having to sit next to at a lengthy social engagement. They are shallow. They are dull. And they are dumb. They are the kinds of characters that have walk-on parts in Friends as the people that the main characters dump—and are glad they did.

Unfortunately for Ashley, I don't think that this is entirely due to the shameful writing or clumsy direction. Someone Like You demands a great deal from her. She is in virtually every scene, and it is her character that is the emotional touchstone for the entire movie. And she simply isn't up to it. Her problem is that she always seems to be paying too much attention to the scenes. She is far too self-conscious about being Ashley Judd to ever just settle in to Jane's admittedly shrill and shallow character.

But Ashley is hardly alone in being dogged by self-consciousness. Someone Like You is leaden with it. Along with a number of its more annoying devices—the direct-to-camera monologues from little kids, the voice-over, the wacky inserted scenes (oh, those hilarious cows)—Someone Like You seems to have copped its self-consciousness from perhaps the only good romantic comedy of post-modern times, Annie Hall. What the film's makers failed to glean, apparently, was that in the end, Woody doesn't get the girl. Self-consciousness is the death of romance. And, poorly done as it is here, the death of comedy as well.