Someone Like You... (2001)

This movie is a great example of how Hollywood tries to disguise stupidity by giving it a good wardrobe and a stylish vocabulary. The fact that scripts like this actually get made gives me hope as a screenwriter--certainly I can't do worse than this offensive drivel. I am stunned that Ashley Judd would take on this piece of trash at such a privileged point in her career.

Watching cows is more fun. This movie falls flat as a comedy, and as social commentary it is truly ludicrous. As the self-pitying main character ridiculously named "Jane Goodall" Judd makes a trite and extended comparison between all men and polygamous bulls. The only thing more simple-minded than her sexist theory and pathetic self-pitying behavior over her fickle ex-boyfriend is that the filmmakers thought we would enjoy sitting through two hours of uninspired dialogue and emotional detachment. With the exception of Marisa Tomei's spirited performance and Naomi Judd's cameo as an over-achieving makeup artist, the movie is uniformly mis-cast: Judd who usually gives nuanced performances is here cardboard-cold and cutesy-cute, (Greg) Kinnear is flat (although he was fantastic in As Good as It Gets), and Hugh Jackman seemed more natural as a Wolverine.

What's worse than the self-pitying truly anti-feminist (proud women don't vilify men) insipidness of this film is tries to be not only amusing, but also "smart." The script is sprinkled with esoteric vocabulary and academic references--as though we are dumb enough to intellectually respect somoene talking garbage as long as they use proper diction and an erudite vocabulary. Additionally, it is full of pseudo-clever visual puns like the preponderance of food especially meat (the physical embodiment of Jane's objectifying view of men as chattel), the somewhat more subtle squirming frog (reminiscent of all those disguised fairy tale princes) and of course the obvious cows, cows, cows. Ashley Judd is cute doing cheers in her underwear, but next time she should pick a movie that inspires cheering.

For more entertainment, I suggest watching milk commercials. It does a body good.

If you are looking for a good romantic comedy, I recommend any of the following: When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, Fools Rush In, Bridget Jones Diary. If you need an Ashley Judd fix: Double Jeopardy for suspense, Where the Heart is for comedy (simple-minded but actually charming), Ruby in Paradise for drama.