How do you know that “How Do You Know,” writer-director James L. Brooks’ leaden new romantic comedy, is a mess?
Well, when Reese Witherspoon’s character asks a beau, “Am I boring you?” you'll find yourself sorely tempted to respond with a vehement “Yes!”
And that’s a huge disappointment because Brooks, with “Terms of Endearment,”“Broadcast News” and “As Good as It Gets,” has crafted some of the most memorable popular films of the last several decades. Each of those featured singular characters, gracefully shaped scenes and zinger lines, all of which resonate still.
In “Terms,” one remembers the randy romance between middle-aged neighbors Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson, a hilarious example of opposites attracting. Added bonus: Nicholson’s retired astronaut, Garrett Breedlove, sported one of the all the time great movie monikers.
In the savvy satire “Broadcast News,” there was a freshness to Holly Hunter’s hyper-talented producer -- a character that had never been seen on a screen before -- and bite to Nicholson’s brief but telling turn as an overpaid anchor. Scene after scene offered a revealing, insider’s look at how the sausage was made at a network news operation, especially Joan Cusack’s mad dash to deliver a just-edited videotape in time to air.
With good reason, nearly every critic, including me, genuflected to “Broadcast News” last month when reviewing “Morning Glory,” which came up woefully short in comparison.
“As Good as It Gets,” which won top acting Oscars for both Nicholson and Helen Hunt, was a gloriously quirky love story, with Nicholson’s obsessive-compulsive writer warily romancing Hunt’s much younger, single-mother waitress. And the movie provided every man with the ultimate, make-her-heart melt line, when Nicholson told Hunt, “You make me want to be a better man.”
Of course, Brooks has had his misses. “I’ll Do Anything,” with Nick Nolte as an unsuccessful actor, was a mess. It began life as a musical but after a long and complicated history, including audience testing, the songs were cut, leaving a spindly story and characters.
“Spanglish” was even worse, the spectacularly sour-tasting story of a marriage going bad. The husband, a celebrity chef (Adam Sandler, straining to emote) in Los Angeles, is allegedly the warm-hearted hero and his wife (Téa Leoni) a withholding, insecure bitch; soon, he falls for the family’s beautiful Mexican housekeeper (Paz Vega), though she speaks almost no English and he very little Spanish. This did not make him a better man.
“How Do You Know” goes solidly in the miss column. The characters, with the exception of Owen Wilson’s swaggering professional baseball pitcher, seem ill-defined, and the plot never catches hold. Making things worse, it's awkwardly shot, with sluggish camera movement and little sense of place.
Its heroine is Witherspoon's Lisa, a professional athlete in Washington, D.C., who early on is cut from the national softball team. At nearly the same time that she’s trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, she meets two very different men.
