Along Came Polly Review
by Jonathan Moya (jmoya AT cfl DOT rr DOT com)March 15th, 2004
Along Came Polly
***
A movie review by Jonathan Moya
Polly Prince: Jennifer Aniston
Sandy: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Lisa : Debra Messing
Stan : Alec Baldwin
Claude: Hank Azaria
Leland: Bryan Brown
Javier: Jsu Garcie
Vivian Feffer: Michele Lee
Univeral Pictures presents a film directed and written by John Hamburg. Running time: 90 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sexual content, language, crude humor and some drug references).
Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly plays one of those dream state characters. She is all fantasy with no reality.
A dream state character always has a messy apartment, a ditzy personality to go along with the mess, wants to travel to strange exotic places with messy names, has an endless well of understanding and sympathy for the anxieties of the non messy life of the man she loves, and always smiles. The ever present smile is the first sure sign that neither the character nor the writer has got a clue.
The pinnacle dream state character of course is Cameron Diaz in There's Something About Mary-- the ultimate ideal woman pursued by endlessly zealous men.
John Hamburg (Meet the Parents, Zoolander) a writer now trying to direct has strung a bunch of anxieties, ailments, and tics together and called it a man. When it came to creating a woman- well, Hamburg just ran out of string. So he does what every normal man without a woman does-- he goes to the bathroom, closes the door, and dreams one up. Failing that, you get an actress who played one on the tube for eleven years.
Jennifer Aniston has played vapor for so long on Friends she is practically ozone. Take her Rachel Green and put it on the big screen and you get down-size charm stuffed in undersize clothes. Aniston has nothing to do but to spread that goofy smile, and count the minutes until Polly wraps and she can go home to Brad.
Ben Stiller normally a capable actor when he gets proper comic support (think Robert De Niro and Cameron Diaz), and an insufferable one when he doesn't (Zoolander), simply farts, sharts (to be explained later), and IBSes himself in embarrassment. Still acting like he has got his pee-pee caught in his zipper, Stiller sweats, huffs and puffs, and groans through spicy foods and underground Salsa bars all in the name of love. Actually, it is his second love. His first took a long, deep dive with a French scuba instructor on the second day of their honeymoon in St. Barts. Ben Feffer, a risk analyst by profession, is now taking his biggest risk of all.
John Hamburg has created both a Feffer and a Fokker-- one a comic gem (Fokker), and the other a milquetoast. His script for Meet the Parents was a zany comedy about in-law paranoia that mated Stiller's Gay Fokker anxieties with Robert De Niro's real spy concerns. As it stumbled towards the truth, it gained comic momentum like a train towing a horse by its tail. Along Came Polly is what is left of the horse after the train has finished its job-- a whole lot of patootie, but not much else.
Hamburg is either brazenly stealing some funny moments from better comic films or he is trying to reinvent them. Change the cute dog from There's Something About Mary into a cute blind ferret banging into walls, and you still get a cute blind ferret banging into walls. The first time it's funny. The second is animal cruelty. The third, call the judge and throw the book at him. Change Mary's famous zipper scene to Ben Stiller on top of an overflowing toilet with his pants around his legs and the ferret swimming under the door-- and, well- you get the idea. Add all the variations on this joke from the American Pie films to now, and Ben Stiller has the longest penis in film history.
Hamburg may be shooting blanks with his main characters, and he dawdles where he needs to be brisk, but Polly is not without its moments of crackerjack fun. He has a good group of parrots that not only want their crackers, but know how to chew them too.
Alec Baldwin has a good time playing Stan Indursky, a New York Jew so broad and crude that it almost borders on insult.
Hank Azaria, sounding like his Apu from The Simpsons caught in a hurricane, and looking as buff as a helmet, creates a French exile so French and sissy that he is practically frissy. He relates a wonderful piece of nonsense about hippos that has to be seen and heard to be appreciated. It is one of those life lesson moments that still remains insane even after twenty years of reflection.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Ben's slob best friend Sandy Lyle, who is always missing the basket and hogging the limelight. A former child Hollywood dimple living off that one golden accordion moment that brought down the house, and now grandiosely playing both Judas and Jesus, in a Hell' s Kitchen community theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar, Hoffman gets the best moment in Polly by sharting in his pants. A shart is a fart that unexpectedly turns into a number two. Hoffman's face reflects the perfect combination of embarrassment and anger. Lyle is a little boy being sent home to change his soiled pants. Hamburg nails the essence of his character with that one bit. Too bad he didn't have enough carpentry skills to finish the job.
Copyright 2004 Jonathan Moya
www.jonathanmoya.com
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
