The Proposal (2009)
Apr. 2nd, 2011 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixie(I watched this yesterday afternoon, but even a day later, I still feel the need to excoriate that mess. So now you all get treated to my ranting. Sorry.)
I'm sure it's not news that marriage of convenience/otherwise faking couplehood is my bulletproof narrative kink. I also have a tremendous fondness for even the most formulaic romantic comedies out there. Sure, I wouldn't want to watch one every day, but a well-done series of predictable cliches, portrayed by charming people in charming settings...there's nothing quite like it for comfort entertainment.
So in theory, I should be all over The Proposal like a chicken on a junebug. Like white on rice. Like scum on a pond. Etc. Not only is it basically an updated Green Card, which I love, but it's Green Card set in small-town Alaska! It has Betty White! For the love of god, it's about a book editor and her assistant! You could not make a movie more tailored to my interests!
...And yet in fact it is an affront to formula rom-coms. It is offensively bad. Look, I know how these things work. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and buy that two characters who don't much like each other can fall in love over the course of three days if they do it convincingly, but this was about as convincing as William Shatner's toupee. Instead of more than two scenes where Margaret and Andrew are shown beginning to tolerate each other, the writer decided the movie needed Sandra Bullock and Betty White, who was wearing some kind of faux Native Alaskan blanket, rapping and dancing in the woods. I wish I were making that up.
When the movie wasn't doing ridiculous things like that, it was enacting one of the few rom-com cliches I have no appreciation for whatsoever: Evil bitchy woman is that way because she's focused on her career to the exclusion of her personal life, and she needs a man to show her what's what. Look, I'm all for the trope of the workaholic learning, generally with much kicking and screaming, to live a little. I'm all for the trope of Ice Queens/Kings defrosting. I'm not so much for a co-worker/minion shouting, as the two characters inevitably kiss at the end of the film, "Yeah, Andrew, show her who's boss!" *headdesk* Unfortunately, that line pretty much encapsulates the feel of the whole shebang.
The really annoying thing is that they actually had some reasonably entertaining tools in their toolbox to play with: Sandra Bullock is twelve years older than Ryan Reynolds, her character is his boss, and they're both shamelessly blackmailing each other throughout most of the movie.* But they chucked them in favor of city-mouse-goes-to-the-country shenanigans for Margaret, and some kind of abortive prodigal son storyline for Andrew. A shame, because the age difference and boss/underling thing could been interesting, if dealt with adequately, but since the film ignored it completely beyond a couple of jokes, it just wound up feeling weird, as it really seemed like they were of different generations and at very different places in their lives. The non-existent chemistry between the two actors didn't help.
And for people in the publishing industry, they almost never talked about books! That was one thing I was really looking forward to! Instead, the one actual literature-related thing we get is Margaret mentioning that she reads Wuthering Heights every Christmas. Of course she does. I hate this movie; naturally the one literary reference would be to the one book I hate most in the world.
Okay, so there were two decent scenes. Early on, there's an entertaining bit of business where a hawk grabs the grandmother's INCREDIBLY CUTE fluffy little white dog, and Margaret throws her cellphone at the hawk to rescue the dog. The hawk quickly grabs her cellphone and releases the dog, and when she realizes this, she attempts to use the dog as bait to get it back, to much amusement from me. And about two-thirds of the way through when Betty White's grandmother character is altering her old wedding dress for Margaret's use, she gives Margaret a necklace that's been in the family for a hundred years, nearly bringing Margaret to tears because her parents died when she was sixteen and she's never really had a family since then. (Sure, it was as emotionally manipulative a scene as any other, but at least it was competently-done.) But out of the entire two hours, that was pretty much it.
...Okay, the scenery was really nice too. I think that might've been the only reason I kept watching.
Sigh. I realize that I probably hate this all out of proportion to how objectively terrible it was. But this movie could've been the perfect fluffy little confection that went straight to my id and made itself at home. Instead, bupkis. Film, you vex me so.
* Perhaps a short plot summary is in order: Evil Dragon Lady Boss Margaret, in the movie's one reversal of cliche, is a Canadian who has outstayed her visa. To continue living and working in the US, she forces Andrew The Personal Assistant to agree to marry her, because otherwise, when she's no longer working for the publishing company due to living in Canada, her arch-enemy [Aasif Mandvi, another reason this movie should've been amazing] will fire him. Knowing he has her over a barrel, Andrew finally grows a spine and wrangles a promotion to editor and a promise to publish a really great manuscript he's had his eye on out of her. The INS is on to their scheme--hey, they probably watched Green Card--and so since he was originally going to go back home to Alaska for his grandmother's ninetieth birthday, she comes along so that they can inform his parents and learn all the necessary little details about each other. You can fill in the rest of it from there, I'm sure.
I'm sure it's not news that marriage of convenience/otherwise faking couplehood is my bulletproof narrative kink. I also have a tremendous fondness for even the most formulaic romantic comedies out there. Sure, I wouldn't want to watch one every day, but a well-done series of predictable cliches, portrayed by charming people in charming settings...there's nothing quite like it for comfort entertainment.
So in theory, I should be all over The Proposal like a chicken on a junebug. Like white on rice. Like scum on a pond. Etc. Not only is it basically an updated Green Card, which I love, but it's Green Card set in small-town Alaska! It has Betty White! For the love of god, it's about a book editor and her assistant! You could not make a movie more tailored to my interests!
...And yet in fact it is an affront to formula rom-coms. It is offensively bad. Look, I know how these things work. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and buy that two characters who don't much like each other can fall in love over the course of three days if they do it convincingly, but this was about as convincing as William Shatner's toupee. Instead of more than two scenes where Margaret and Andrew are shown beginning to tolerate each other, the writer decided the movie needed Sandra Bullock and Betty White, who was wearing some kind of faux Native Alaskan blanket, rapping and dancing in the woods. I wish I were making that up.
When the movie wasn't doing ridiculous things like that, it was enacting one of the few rom-com cliches I have no appreciation for whatsoever: Evil bitchy woman is that way because she's focused on her career to the exclusion of her personal life, and she needs a man to show her what's what. Look, I'm all for the trope of the workaholic learning, generally with much kicking and screaming, to live a little. I'm all for the trope of Ice Queens/Kings defrosting. I'm not so much for a co-worker/minion shouting, as the two characters inevitably kiss at the end of the film, "Yeah, Andrew, show her who's boss!" *headdesk* Unfortunately, that line pretty much encapsulates the feel of the whole shebang.
The really annoying thing is that they actually had some reasonably entertaining tools in their toolbox to play with: Sandra Bullock is twelve years older than Ryan Reynolds, her character is his boss, and they're both shamelessly blackmailing each other throughout most of the movie.* But they chucked them in favor of city-mouse-goes-to-the-country shenanigans for Margaret, and some kind of abortive prodigal son storyline for Andrew. A shame, because the age difference and boss/underling thing could been interesting, if dealt with adequately, but since the film ignored it completely beyond a couple of jokes, it just wound up feeling weird, as it really seemed like they were of different generations and at very different places in their lives. The non-existent chemistry between the two actors didn't help.
And for people in the publishing industry, they almost never talked about books! That was one thing I was really looking forward to! Instead, the one actual literature-related thing we get is Margaret mentioning that she reads Wuthering Heights every Christmas. Of course she does. I hate this movie; naturally the one literary reference would be to the one book I hate most in the world.
Okay, so there were two decent scenes. Early on, there's an entertaining bit of business where a hawk grabs the grandmother's INCREDIBLY CUTE fluffy little white dog, and Margaret throws her cellphone at the hawk to rescue the dog. The hawk quickly grabs her cellphone and releases the dog, and when she realizes this, she attempts to use the dog as bait to get it back, to much amusement from me. And about two-thirds of the way through when Betty White's grandmother character is altering her old wedding dress for Margaret's use, she gives Margaret a necklace that's been in the family for a hundred years, nearly bringing Margaret to tears because her parents died when she was sixteen and she's never really had a family since then. (Sure, it was as emotionally manipulative a scene as any other, but at least it was competently-done.) But out of the entire two hours, that was pretty much it.
...Okay, the scenery was really nice too. I think that might've been the only reason I kept watching.
Sigh. I realize that I probably hate this all out of proportion to how objectively terrible it was. But this movie could've been the perfect fluffy little confection that went straight to my id and made itself at home. Instead, bupkis. Film, you vex me so.
* Perhaps a short plot summary is in order: Evil Dragon Lady Boss Margaret, in the movie's one reversal of cliche, is a Canadian who has outstayed her visa. To continue living and working in the US, she forces Andrew The Personal Assistant to agree to marry her, because otherwise, when she's no longer working for the publishing company due to living in Canada, her arch-enemy [Aasif Mandvi, another reason this movie should've been amazing] will fire him. Knowing he has her over a barrel, Andrew finally grows a spine and wrangles a promotion to editor and a promise to publish a really great manuscript he's had his eye on out of her. The INS is on to their scheme--hey, they probably watched Green Card--and so since he was originally going to go back home to Alaska for his grandmother's ninetieth birthday, she comes along so that they can inform his parents and learn all the necessary little details about each other. You can fill in the rest of it from there, I'm sure.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 12:17 am (UTC)All the way back to Neanderthals, living in their cave-cities! "Grog no want take bus downtown! Bus move like snail, since only wheels invented so far be square!"
Why does this not surprise me in the LEAST?
I'd suggest banning WH, to prevent it from spawning endless cheap ripoffs, but THEN HOW WOULD WE KNOW WHAT NOT TO WRITE?
Nooooooooo, not the Twilight wiki cooties!!!!
:::wipes them on you:::
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 03:26 am (UTC)*snerk*
I'd suggest banning WH, to prevent it from spawning endless cheap ripoffs, but THEN HOW WOULD WE KNOW WHAT NOT TO WRITE?
I'd ban it in a hot minute.
:::wipes them on you:::
*applies sunlight* Wait, that only makes them sparkle. Dammit!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 01:06 pm (UTC)Ah, but if you ban the awful, then it can't serve as a warning to all who follow. Perhaps it would be better to start a public awareness campaign, to teach children how to identify and defend themselves from bad literature?
*applies sunlight* Wait, that only makes them sparkle. Dammit!
Haha, like craft glitter! You'll never be rid of it! (My little Christmas twig came with glitter on it, and despite the fact that that thing died and was trashed before Christmas, I found glitter still in my kitchen YESTERDAY.)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-06 01:43 am (UTC)True, but at least we might get different awful? Awfulness is kind of inevitable, so the least we could do is get some other kind of it...
Glitter NEVER GOES AWAY.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-06 02:19 am (UTC)I have a terrible feeling that if we burnt every copy of WH and eradicated it from cultural memory, the next year someone would write "Shwuthering Blights" and everyone would be all, "Oh! A novelty!" :::facepalm:::
Glitter NEVER GOES AWAY
And today I found it on my train-reading! That book was nowhere NEAR the kitchen!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-06 04:21 am (UTC)Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!