If you’re itching to see The Proposal, you’re better off watching the trailer five times and then renting Green Card, though in The Proposal‘s favor, there is no montage.
(I loathe montages, those cop-out mishmashes set to thematic music that are supposed to take the place of pivotal transition action. The worst montage of all time, is, of course, the speech montage in that movie sort of inspired by J.D. Salinger — the one with the cute black boy and Sean Connery as the reclusive writer? In the climactic scene where Sean Connery (a famous, eccentric, brilliant writer) leaves his apartment for the first time in seventeen years to read a speech at the cute black boy’s school and as soon as he steps to the lectern to give his speech, a godless montage of camera shots and “inspirational” music takes the place of, you know, words.
It’s a travesty, basically.)
While The Proposal doesn’t commit that most egregious of all cinematic sins, it’s quite a letdown in other ways. From the tired orphan issues and daddy issues (Sandra Bullock’s and Ryan Renold’s characters, respectively) to the apology-to-the-family scene near the end that I think is actually identical to the speech in While You Were Sleeping, it’s all-cliche, all-the-time, and not in a cheeky sort of way.
I’m really not much of a feminist (I mean, I stay at home, and only recently started mowing the lawn again), but the portrayal of Margaret as a scary boss strikes me as sexism of the worst sort. When she fires an underling who is demonstrably lazy and ineffectual, she says he has two months to find another job and that he can tell everyone he quit. And she never makes personal remarks or raises her voice. Sounds pretty fair to me, but what do I know? I haven’t worked in an office in seven years. Maybe male executives fire goof-offs by giving them raises and holding their hands in a purely platonic manner.
But the biggest strike against The Proposal is that it failed to convince me that Margaret and Andrew have any warmer feelings for each other than I do for tapioca pudding. I like tapioca, I’ll eat it, especially when my dad flexes his cooking muscles once every six months and whips up a batch in the microwave, but I’m not going to weep if we’re kept apart by a tragic blood feud, okay?
Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock are cute of course, and witty enough. They even have a kind of reverse-Sabrina take-a-break scene complete with Frenchy-artist scarf for Margaret and a consistent give-and-take comraderie, but they don’t fall in love.
My cousin was (understandably) disturbed by the nudey scene, but the truth is that I would gladly sit through raw footage of octopus-unicorn sex if at the end of the day I’m convinced that Miss Tentacles and Mr. Sparkly are going to happily populate the world with octocorns and enjoy seventy years of maritime bliss.
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That’s exactly my problem with SO MANY movies. I loved Notting Hill for the Spike character, but at the end of the movie, I had no belief that Julia Roberts was in love with Hugh Grant. I just didn’t believe it.
Thanks for the warning on The Proposal. I guess we’ll avoid it.
When are they going to start writing GOOD romantic comedies again? I had no idea how spoiled I was in the Eighties and early Nineties…
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Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 am
I actually enjoyed The Proposal while I was watching it (I am a cheap date when it comes to romantic comedies, and it IS at least a million times better than anything with Kate Hudson in it, so). And Tom liked it quite a bit. He has such low expectations of that kind of thing though.
Not a comedy (but funny) — have you seen Lost in Austen. Very British, and though a bit hurried at the end, convincing.
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Hey, I love montages!
I agree re. Notting Hill. Did not feel the love at all.
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Two things.
1. Lost in Austen is awesome. I wish it were easier to find.
2. I think the reason why the chemistry of The Proposal didn’t bother me was that at the end it didn’t show them all lovey dovey. I hate that people are often portrayed as being so freaking in love after a long weekend or a week or two. It’s not love at all, but rather a kind of sad combination of lust and hope (or delusion).
But to like someone, to understand them, and to care about their well-being, after a long weekend… that makes a lot more sense to me.
Extremely predictable. And really far-fetched. But I don’t really see movies for their real life aspects. I see movies so I can get away from my own. You know?
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Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:20 am
No, I mean, I enjoyed it, I just was disappointed. Though, like I said in a comment to Laura — a million times better than anything with Kate Hudson in it.
And yes, I love to see movies to get away. I think I am maybe addicted to movies, and now that we have the $ theater so close and my kids are sadly addicted along with me, I could spend every Friday night at the big screen!
By the way, I loved Up! It was fantastic! The romance there (of course they showed a whole life rather than a weekend, so not a fair comparison) was completely believable and I cried, even though they were animated.
p.s. Lost in Austen was shown on channel 7 kued/PBS a couple months ago — that’s where I discovered it, and then I bought it on Half.com. I wish I could find the soundtrack, but I’m beginning to think they didn’t produce one.
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Aww, that’s too bad. One less thing to look forward to.
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Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:20 am
Well, if you thought the trailer was funny (I thought it was HILARIOUS), you’ll enjoy the movie. Don’t let my curmudgeonly nitpicking stand in your way!
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True, we didn’t get to see the love totally fruition. I believed that they became friends, but I didn’t believe they had fallen in love and could last past a month. Maybe that was because the ending fell flat; It was like they didn’t know what to after the first 75% of the movie. Too bad. It could have been so much better.
On the other hand, it had its funny moments and kept me entertained. However, I’m easily entertained and I love going to the movies!
I though the montage in “UP” was good. What did you think?
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Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:22 am
LOVED Up. (I didn’t even register that there was a montage, but of course you’re right there was one. — though there it was necessary, as backstory, rather than as a climactic scene, I think. Or maybe it was just such a fantastic movie that even the montage was awesome!!). I cried at least five times during Up, and I can’t wait to buy it.
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You know, for a light romantic comedy — a genre I usually hate — this movie kept me engaged and laughing. Of course, I haven’t seen these cliche scenes thousands of times (I’m more familiar with action/adventure cliches), so my tastes aren’t as refined. Still, I have to wonder how you can enjoy genre romance fiction so much while being so critical of a genre romance movie?
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If you don’t like montages, I’m guessing you’re not a big fan of Rocky IV. If you took the montages out of that film it would be about 10 minutes long.
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Wasn’t Betty White in this movie. Because I’m old, I want to see the move just to watch her. She cracks me up. AND, this is the 3rd or 4th time I’ve heard UP is a must-see! Who would have thought cartoon characters could evoke so many tears. Can’t wait to see it. Hubby and I finally caught Star Trek – loved it, and Angels and Demons – liked it better than the book, a first, I think. B/c of raising 4 boys, I’m into action/adventure, but love chick flicks, too, even the cliche’d sappy ones.
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One more thing, Janey! : ) Today is Wednesday, and THAT means tomorrow is THURSDAY, and I hope you remember what THAT means! : )
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I guess I’ll wait til the movie’s on TV. And I’m up late awake feeding or something. Not that that’s likely to happen anytime especially soon. But, given we don’t have dollar theatres, I think I’ll wait til it’s cheap to see. And I haven’t even seen the trailer to know if I’ve found it funny or not … !
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If you don’t want clichés, then never go see any chick flick. I expect them. I thought the movie was hilarious. I liked how at the end she argued with him. Didn’t just fall into his arms.
The naked scene didn’t bother me at all because of the context.
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Oh, and after your raving and Steph’s raving I was super excited for Up. Didn’t really like it all that much. It was depressing and a bit slow. I expected more humour.
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Just saw “The Proposal”. Man…what a low-down…I mean, as was previously remarked, they never fall in love! Not ever! And I do mean, not ever! Plus, he’s a wimp and she’s not a crazy boss! There is no chemistry! I mean, I found myself cheering his father and the guy in the immigration office! Come on!
Plus the script is full of flaws! For 3 years, you get nothing but hell from Margaret and then, in 3 days, without her *REALLY* coming to her senses AND *REALLY* falling in love with you, you merry her because…wait for it…you love her! Come on! I mean…this may be the Stockholm syndrome seen in action at a whole new level! Think of it! For 3 years, she gave you sooo much hell, that you went through all the normal stages or discomfort, hatred, fear and since she continued to bully you sooo much, you ended up loving her: “please Margaret, treat me bad once again! please Margaret – destroy my weekends! take my life Margaret! step on it! spit on it!I love you Margaret!” Pathetic!
The movie failed to convince on sooooo many levels, yet somehow it benefited from a white check from the public! Just as “Paul Blart Mall Cop” (another huge low-down, pathetic, message-less surrogate for a movie), it scored masively with the public! I cannot help to think with horror, if we’re starting to go into the direction shown by a Luke Wilson movie, where he gets traped in a cryo pod for 500 years and when he wakes up the world got soo dumb that the major movie of the times is a entitled “A.S.S” and all it shows is an “A.S.S.”. And everyone loves it!
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