A Lot Like Love Review
by Susan Granger (ssg722 AT aol DOT com)April 26th, 2005
Susan Granger's review of "A Lot Like Love" (Touchstone Pictures)
It begins a lot more like lust, as a punky, aggressive young woman grabs a shy, grungy fellow, a total stranger, to join the Mile High Club in a cramped airplane lavatory on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. Since all of this is a flashback, their love story is what happens next.
After their amorous introduction, self-absorbed twentysomethings Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) and Oliver Martin (Ashton Kutcher) discover that they not only live in different cities but their lives are on divergent tracks. So three years pass. It's New Year's Eve and Emily's boyfriend has dumped her. She finds Oliver's parents' phone number and calls him. Once again, they meet and greet. But then more complications and obstacles arise. All-in-all, it takes them seven years of sporadic couplings to discover what the audience grasps in the first reel: they're in love.
Lanky Ashton Kutcher has a curious career. His primary claim-to-fame is hosting TV's "Punk'd," and he's occupied a semi-permanent niche in the tabloids as Demi Moore's boy-toy. His acting ability certainly seems secondary, yet he shows an earnest, appealing quality, particularly in the scenes that illustrate his close relationship with his deaf brother (Ty Giordano). But when Kutcher shares the screen with free-spirited Amanda Peet, her thespian ability so outweighs his that he's at a distinct disadvantage and comes across as clumsy and inept.
Colin Patrick Lynch's coincidence-propelled screenplay is curiously similar to Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" and "After Sunset," so director Nigel Cole simply plays out the low-key, clichéd soulmates-seeking-each-other scenario as best he can. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "A Lot Like Love" is a quirky, terminally cute 5. It's instantly forgettable fluff.
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