Inept ‘Proposal’ eeks out minor charm
This week, Roger Ebert dismisses Year One (a major critical dud that’s also inexplicably a New York Times Critics’ Pick; Manohla’s rapturous prose aside, no amount of arm-twisting could propel me to see what’s certain to be the douchiest movie of the year), pondering when “bad things happen to good directors.” I couldn’t help but think about how tragic it can be when bad things happen to good actors as I watched The Proposal, which may have 2009’s worst screenplay in a lock at only T-minus six-and-a-half months.
As an iron-fisted (and much feared) New York publishing executive, Sandra Bullock faces deportation to Canada after her Visa application is denied. On a whim, she convinces her hardworking assistant, Ryan Reynolds, to marry her so she can stay in the U.S. and they can both keep their jobs. Facing an INS official’s suspicions, they jet off to his family’s Alaskan estate to announce their engagement to proud mom Mary Steenburgen, distant dad Craig T. Nelson, and free-spirited grandma Betty White.
With this, The Proposal rips off the narrative structure of my favorite Bullock vehicle, While You Were Sleeping, without retaining any of its charm or wit. Though it substitutes bitchy and controlling for vulnerable and quick witted, Bullock is once again the lonely, orphaned single gal, paired in a fictional romance with a young, handsome WASP, then welcomed into his loving, perfect family as the daughter they never had. It follows that template to the last — from the initial awkward, “comedic” hijinks that emerge from their duplicity, right down to — spoiler ahoy! — Bullock’s climactic confession at the altar and the penultimate workplace reunion.
Sleeping spun this into a winning formula, employing the comedy of misunderstanding instead of outright deception. It had the benefit of a wider, more gifted supporting cast (Peter Boyle, Jack Warden, Glynis Johns), but also clever, memorable dialogue. Nearly all of The Proposal’s attempts at comedy fall flat (a lame running gag that has The Office’s Oscar Nuñez popping up at odd jobs around town is especially mystifying), and it lurches from plot point to plot point without putting forth any effort engineering a true journey for its characters. (Though the movie takes great pains to highlight it, the strained father-son relationship between Nelson and Reynolds is inauthentic and goes nowhere.) Predictable and uninventive, its humor dripping with cynicism, The Proposal is a mostly unpleasant cinematic experience.
I say “mostly,” because somehow in the face of this ineptitude, Bullock and Reynolds still manage to enchant us, ultimately escaping more or less unscathed. (Betty White is not so lucky.) These stars are great to look at (Reynolds seems to only be getting hotter with age), and they do have some chemistry. Their back and forth is even good for a chuckle or two. But as someone who can easily forgive the use of formula and cliché in romantic comedy, The Proposal managed to disappoint even me; the poor script just makes it painful to sit through.
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