A Lot Like Love - 2 Stars (Average)



"A Lot Like Love" chronicles the indecision of two young adults who are misguided and muddled in both their careers and love life. They haul off and do nothing with themselves and then wonder why they are not happy. No wonder they are confused about love.

Perhaps they represent too many young adults today, bouncing around like a small metal ball in a pinball contest. Small in thought, small in words and small in deeds.

Drifting, detached, uncommitted, meaningless and terribly out of touch with themselves and everyone around them.

This is Hollywood, of course, and so they do have unplanned sex that is more like buying a bologna sandwich, taking the wrapper off, eating it, throwing the wrapper away, and wondering what's for dinner.

The politically correct expression for this might be casual sex, but no one is laughing, least of all the participants. They have no substance, little depth, and cannot possibly calculate the emotional damage they are doing to themselves. After drifting into and out of liaisons, it is a wonder they ever figure it out.

Life is a pretty good deal for anyone who is paying attention; the two love boobs in this romantic comedy deserve each other. Of course they end up together in the end, that is the point of a romantic comedy, otherwise it would be romantic tragedy.

A Lot Like Love moves along at the same pace as its leading characters, Emily (Amanda Peet) and Oliver (Ashton Kutcher), slow to very slow.

It reminds me oddly enough of Max McGee's comment to his Green Bay Packer coach Vince Lombardi. Lombardi liked to start every season with the fundamentals, so he would hold up a football on the first day of practice, look serious, and say, "Gentlemen, this is a football," to which McGee-the chief clown among the players, replied, "Uh, Coach, could you slow down a little. You're going too fast for us."

The script is the creation of award-winning writer Colin Patrick Lynch who has apparently done some good work, but this wasn't it.

At best, Lynch understands the teenybopper set as the only award for this film was the Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Rockstar Moment when Ashton Kutcher sang "I'll Be There for You". As tennyboppers are slaves to the latest fashion trends and pop music it comes as no great surprise.

The premise of A Lot Like Love, directed by Nigel Cole in apparently a somber moment, has two people meeting on a flight, toying with the idea of liking each other, and then dismissing the relationship only to keep bumping into each other over the next 7 years.

The movie has its comedic seconds, twists and turns, and a decent ending. What it lacks in substance among the characters it makes up for in slow development, which is why it was not a stunner at awards time and came off as an average effort.

Both Amanda Peet and Ashton Kutcher deserved a better script and character development. Peet must play a pothead with a fried brain, and Kutcher plays a dipstick that lives at home with his mother and sister.

Eventually Peet's character ends up in a halter-top party dress and looks like a million bucks as long as she doesn't open her mouth. Kutcher's character is hopeless, it's a wonder he can find his way home. This was supposed to be a comedy, but it was not THAT funny.

See this film once, and if someone invites you back a second time, tell them you have already seen it five times and are sick of it.