Heartbreaker / L’arnacoeur (2010) – 3*

Dir: Pascal Chaumeil/ Writer: Laurent Zeitoun and Jeremy Doner/ Cinematography: Thierry Arbogast

Monsieur Duris wears a tux well…(image: woody1969 FlickrCC)

Nobody puts baby in the corner
After years of Hollywood pillaging French cinema for creative inspiration, director Pascal Chaumeil’s French-language take on the kind of rom-com perfected by J-Lo and Matthew “bongos” McConaughey has a certain novelty.

Romain Duris (from the excellent The Beat That My Heart Skips) is “The Heartbreaker” a man who’s paid handsomely to break up couples by seducing the (supposedly) unhappy females with targeted flirting and some carefully choreographed White Knight heroics. It works every time.  But all good things come to an end. And he meets his when he agrees to split up happy couple Juliette (Vanessa Paradis) and Jonathan (a frankly fabulous, completely unleaveable Andrew Lincoln) and runs slap-bang into his very own heartbreaker.

Stunningly shot in the South of France and Monaco the scenery (landscape and the human kind) just about makes up for some clunky slapstick and dubious plotting. Duris and Mrs Johnny Depp (aka Vanessa Paradis) make typically charming, effortlessly charismatic, Gallic leads – despite not being quite at ease with some of the cheesier romantic staples.

Movie Pieces Review Rating for Heartbreaker: 3/5
IMDb entry for Heartbreaker

Arthur (1981) – 3*

Dir: Steve Gordon/ Writer: Steve Gordon/ Cinematographer: Fred Schuler

Debonair Dudley (image: Alan Light FlickrCC)

The ditsy dipsy

Arthur Buck (the diminutive Dudley Moore) is a teeny-tiny, rich-as-Croesus bachelor on the loose in NYC. Permanently inebriated, with a laugh like a hyena and a penchant for picking up street girls, there are 750 million reasons why he’s considered a catch. Forced by his exasperated family into a suitable marriage with Susan, Jill Eikenberry’s oddly adoring gangster’s daughter, it seems like he’ll finally have to grow up. But then Arthur falls in love with Brooklyn gal Linda and realises that he can’t buy his way out of every difficult situation.

Showing its age and overly reliant on the Dudley Moore pratfall, this charming rom-com is saved from schmaltz by the acidic presence of the great lord himself – Sir John Gielgud – playing Arthur’s butler, Hobson, whose deliciously waspish put downs provide all the com for this rom.

Movie Pieces review rating for Arthur: 3/5
IMDb entry for Arthur

The Ugly Truth (2009) – 1*

Dir: Robert Luketic/ Writer: Nicole Eastman and Karen McCullah Lutz/ Cinematography: Russell Carpenter

Gerard’s joke about the Englishman and the Irishman was going down badly…(image: PerryMarco FlickrCC)

The clue’s in the title
Forget the relaxing benefits of entertainment, this is the kind of tosh that takes years off your life. Attempting to redo Shakespearean comedy The Taming of the Shrew for the billionth time, The Ugly Truth sees tightly-wound spinster TV producer Abby (Katherine Heigl) get patronising lessons in seduction from alpha male, TV sexpert Mike (Gerard Butler).

Heigl should be ashamed. Gerard Butler…well, it’s about par for the course for him in his new role as Hollywood’s ‘favourite sleazy lead’ – now that Colin Farrell’s wised up and moved on.

This has been done with far more charm and almost the same plot line in countless films (a personal favourite being Someone like You with Ashley Judd and the delicious Hugh Jackman) any of which make a far better way to pass the time.

Unfunny, misogynistic bobbins.

Movie Pieces review rating for The Ugly Truth: 1/5
IMDb entry for The Ugly Truth

Priceless / Hors de Prix (2006)

Dir: Pierre Salvadori /Writer: Pierre Salvadori / Cinematography: Gilles Henry

Amelie gets mean (image: impawards.com)

Cute Audrey Tatou gets tough as Irène; a gold-digger on the hunt for a permanent sugar-daddy who mistakes bartender Jean (Gad Elmaleh)for a man of money. Realising her mistake she drops him like a hot pomme de terre but the poor man is smitten and tries to keep her in the manner to which she’s accustomed until her love of the high life (very quickly) wipes out his life savings.

It should be frothy and funny – How to Marry A Millionaire or Some Like it Hot could provide the perfect template to follow – but, unfortunately, while the romance eventually convinces the humour is a shade too cruel and it comes too late to work as effortlessly as premium comedy should. Still, the south of France settings are wonderful and Audrey, as ever, is a pleasure to watch.

Rating: 3.5/5
IMDb entry for Priceless

The Proposal (2009)

Dir: Anne Fletcher / Writer: Pete Chiarelli / Cinematography: Oliver Stapleton

The Divine Ms B (image: Doctor Hyde FlickrCC)

Hers for the asking
A solid three star review for this most solid of rom-coms. Sandra Bullock plays high-flying uber-bitch book editor Margaret Tate who blackmails her long-suffering assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) into marriage when her visa application is turned down. As they spend time in his home town in Alaska to create a convincing back story for immigration they both undergo changes.

He grows a backbone and turns out to be incredibly wealthy – putting him on a more equal footing with her. She, typically for a rom-com, finds some humility, loses her career and discovers that all she’s really wanted is a family of her own. That it’s funny, warm and not completely annoying, despite its predictability is down to Ms Bullock who drops her ice-queen act pretty sharpish in favour of the pratfalling comedy shtick that serves her so well.

Good support from Mary Steenburger as Andrew’s mother, Malin Akerman as Andrew’s oh-so-perfect childhood sweetheart and the stunning countryside (Massachusetts gamely standing in for Alaska). And of course Ryan Reynolds has to be commended for his most agreeable nude scene.

Rating: 3/5
IMDb entry for The Proposal

Caramel / Sukkar banat (2007)

Dir: Nadine Labaki / Writer: Rodney El Haddad, Jihad Hojeily / Cinematography: Yves Sehnaoui

(image: vanou Flickr CC)

Wax on, wax off
Director Nadine Labaki has crafted a charming, low-budget film that shows the unseen side of life in the Lebanon – a life that doesn’t revolve around politics or religion but the daily dreams and dramas that make up the lives of five beauty salon workers.

Labaki gives equal screen time to all five women which, as another reviewer has pointed out might well be fair but (since some storylines are far more engaging than others) it’s a strategy that doesn’t quite pay off.

Glamorous, adorable salon owner Layale (played by Labaki) has a complicated love life that would have played out better across more screen time and Rima’s gradual acceptance of her sexuality as she slowly falls in love with a beautiful mysterious stranger would definitely have benefitted from more of a character study. On the other hand, Rose’s storyline, overwhelmed by the screechy, manic antics of her senile sister Lili, it’s a case of less would definitely be more.

A slight but sweet tale.

Rating: 3.5
IMDb entry for Caramel

The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004)

Dir: Garry Marshall / Writer: Shonda Rhimes and Gina Wendkos / Cinematography: Charles Minsky

Julie, Mickey and Minnie have fun in the sun (image: obfusciatrist FlickrCC)

Genovia’s back…just in case you missed it
A sequel – quite obviously produced to cash in on the unexpected box office success of the charming teen wish-fulfilment fantasy, The Princess Diaries.  Here Princess Mia (formerly plain Mia Thermopolis) is all grown-up, and returns to Genovia (a peculiarly sunny made-up Eurozone mish-mash) to fulfil her royal duties and become Queen.

The only fly in the ointment is the old genovian ruling that requires all women to be married before they can ascend to the throne. Cue blue-blooded Blind Date and within a week Mia has got herself a King-in-waiting – cheerful, but dull Brit Andrew Jacoby (Smallville’s Callum Blue). Frustratingly for all concerned, while there’s no spark with Jacoby she’s strangely attracted to Nicholas Devereaux (Chris Pine and his amazingly bouffant hair), who also happens to be a rival for the crown.

In the first film, the clever casting (Hathaway, Julie Andrews and Hector Elizondo), quirky characters and the sly, witty script combined to make an entertainingly off-beat comedy that appealed to tween, teen and adult alike.

Here they’ve extinguished the spark of clever originality and thrown in morality tales aplenty, more pratfalls, song and dance sequences (Julie Andrews gets to clear her pipes) and girly sleepovers – ultimately targeting the tween audience at the expense of all others. It hits its target demographic and delivered decent numbers at the box office, but it’s sucked the fun out of the whole experience. Anne Hathaway is so much better than this.

Rating: 2/5
IMDb entry for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

* Based on the characters by Meg Cabot

17 Again (2009)

Dir: Burr Steers / Writer: Jason Filardi / Cinematography: Tim Suhrstedt

Seventeen the first time round (image: FCC_WorthingTheatres)

If you could wake up as Zac Efron, what would you do?
Mike (Matthew Perry) is a self-pitying middle-aged man who has never got over the decision he made at 17 to give up his burgeoning basketball career and college plans to marry his pregnant high-school sweetheart.

Faced with the realisation that his teen kids don’t like him very much and his marriage is crumbling, he makes the mistake of telling a strange old man he’d like to be 17 again. And so, when he wakes up, he is. Or, at least, he’s been transported into his 17-year-old body (Zac Efron).

Notting Hill (1999)

Dir: Roger Michell / Writer: Richard Curtis / Cinematographer: Michael Coulter

Pointing the way...(image: Fimb FlickrCC)

Notting Hill…the soft focus version

Working Title have a track record of polishing tired plots, adding an iconic soundtrack and sprinkling on the fairy dust of stellar casting, but here it just doesn’t seem to gel.  A disappointingly tepid romance with the two leads, who usually sparkle in this kind of fare, struggling with a leaden script and a severe lack of chemistry.

Grant is William Thacker, a bookseller in London’s Notting Hill, who literally runs into Julia Roberts megawatt movie star – Anna Scott. He bumbles, she’s stony and subdued.  He falls hard, her interest seems mildly piqued and Rhys Ifans wanders around looking pale and not particularly interesting.

Then comes the boyfriend ‘reveal’ and the course of true love yada yada yada. Unforgivably dull.

Only You (1994)

Dir: Norman Jewison / Writer: Diane Drake / Cinematographer: Sven Nykvist

Indeed... (image: amy.smart FlickrCC)

Written in the stars
All her life kooky Faith (Marisa Tomei) has believed she was destined to marry a man called Damian Bradley, just because a fortuneteller and Ouija board told her so.

The week before Faith’s due to get married she takes a message from the very man. A drunken night of deliberation leads to a headlong flight to Italy where Damien is supposed to be. But then she meets a man who may or may not be Damien but might be the one she’s been looking for…

Only You is a by the numbers rom-com that’s enlivened by the presence of Downey Jr. and Tomei at their kooky best and, of course, the unbeatable backdrop of la Bella Italia.

Rating: 3.5/5
IMDb entry for Only You