In the latest romantic comedy about attractive New Yorkers, Kate Hudson is Andie Anderson, a pretty “how-to” columnist for a popular women's magazine whose latest assignment is to show, firsthand, how a woman can ruin a relationship in 10 days by doing all the wrong things. Matthew McConaughey is Ben Barry, a handsome ad exec whose boss has challenged him to make a woman fall for him (in, coincidentally, 10 days), to prove that he knows enough about the minds of women to handle a major jewelry account. The schemes collide when Andie and Ben choose each other as romantic targets.
The film, inspired by a humorous dating guide by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long (which offers deliberately bad advice like “Ask him if you look fat” and “After sex, talk”), pokes fun at relationship stereotypes in a way that, while not exactly clever, is pretty amusing—due in large part to the talented leads. With a great blend of malice and charm, Hudson torments McConaughey—pestering him with phone calls, redecorating his bachelor pad with frilly stuff, asking him to nurture a “love fern”—who stuns her by playing along with her bizarre behavior, enduring a chick-flick marathon (“Sleepless in Seattle is my favorite movie,” she gushes. “Mine, too,” he replies, deadpan) and a Celine Dion concert without complaint. Almost everyone in the large supporting cast (which includes Bebe Neuwirth, Michael Michele, Adam Goldberg, and Kathryn Hahn) is in on at least one of the scams, and they watch and meddle with glee.
Unfortunately, the movie falls apart in the third act, when the filmmakers decide it's time for Andie and Ben to stop playing games and figure out that they're in love with each other. Sweeping love ballads (not Dion, but certainly a close cousin) hijack the soundtrack, the characters become earnest and moony, and the movie resorts to wacky hijinks, straight out of Romantic Comedy 101, to tie up the plot. It's a disappointingly conventional ending for a film that aims to mock these very same conventions.
—Kelly Borgeson
PREVIEW (posted 1/10/03)
Kate Hudson is a writer working on a magazine article about how not to act with the guy in your life. The cute advertising exec (Matthew McConaughey) she picks as the unsuspecting subject of her exercise has his own agenda-a bet with his boss that she'll fall for him, no matter how disastrous their dates turn out to be.
The Bottom Line: Director Donald Petrie (Miss Congeniality, Mystic Pizza) has a light touch with romantic comedy; chances are this won't get lost in the shuffle. (Paramount)
Copyright © 2008 Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.