Fine Line Features
Director–Paul Greengrass
Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Kenneth Branagh
Drama 105 mi
Based on Richard Hawkins’ semi-autobiographical screenplay, The Theory of Flight could easily be mistaken for a romantic comedy made circa 1972 about mismatched lovers — the same year as Hal Ashby’s irreverent, spring-winter love story, Harold and Maude. Read the rest of this entry »

Pretty Woman was a bit of romantic fluff that caught everyone off guard when it became a huge box-office hit. It made Julia Roberts a superstar, added luster to the groundless myth that Richard Gere was sexy and — according to detractors — made prostitution a wacky, harmless little plot-twist in its contemporary re-telling of the Cinderella story. But one reason for the movie’s success may well have been the shadowy remnants of its original screenplay. It’s now part of Hollywood lore that the first script for Pretty Woman was a dark, much more cynical tale with a decidedly downbeat ending. (Hint: The happy couple didn’t ride off into the sunset in a limo.) By the time the film made it to the big-screen, however, it’d been transformed into a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy. Still, there were murky undercurrents that gave the film a bit of an edge, a bit of heft.

Runaway Bride has no such heft. It has no shadows or undercurrent, at all. It springs directly from the feverish but impoverished imagination of studio accountants with visions of endless residuals dancing in their heads. From the high-concept premise, to the meet-cute intro of the made-for-each-other lead couple, to the blandly “eccentric” small-town locals (including the wasted Joan Cusack and Laurie Metcalf), the contrived bickering that masks (surprise, surprise) a growing attraction between the leads, and on to the big ending that is completely void of that wonderful, warm transcendence that such films are supposed to spark, Runaway Bride is an atrocious bit of by-the-numbers screen filler. And anyone who easily lapses into sugar comas is advised to stay far, far away. The film is filled with innumerable shots of rosy-cheeked cherubs, cutesy cats, and loveably sad-eyed hounds — for no reason other than to boost the overall cute-quotient.

What makes the film unbearable, though, is the very “reunion” that inspired it in the first place. Director Garry Marshall’s faults are outlined above. What’s really surprising, though, are the performances by the leads. Richard Gere’s character — a smug, self-righteous newspaper columnist — is singularly unappealing, made more so by Gere’s smug, flat performance. (The character’s “shift” toward lovable is abrupt and unconvincing in both the writing and the acting.) Roberts comes off as a young starlet doing a Julia Roberts impersonation — lots of big, forced smiles and dewy-eyed woundedness. There is no discenible chemistry between the two lead actors.

Go rent Pretty Woman again, even go back and watch the deeply flawed Notting Hill for a second time. But steer clear of this hapless Bride and the men caught in her wake.