A Lot Like Love Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)May 28th, 2005
A LOT LIKE LOVE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
In A LOT LIKE LOVE, strangers Oliver and Emily share one magical day that starts with sex -- à la the mile-high club -- and ends with a kiss. During the day, they make a bet. Emily is to call Oliver, who is only in town briefly, in six years. He predicts that he'll be rich through a scheme to sell diapers on the Internet -- it's the 1990s -- and have a beautiful wife as well. She bets him fifty bucks that his dream won't happen. The movie then works its way forward, stopping periodically when, as luck would have it, one or the other of them is in a relationship.
The story is about best friends who clearly are destined to be with each other since what they share is a lot like love. In fact, it is love. The movie is a romantic comedy that's light on the comedy and heavy on the romance, but always in an understated manner.
The movie's biggest surprise is in how well casting works. As Oliver, Ashton Kutcher is, for a change, adorable rather than annoying and irresistible rather than irritating. If you are suffering from Kutcher fatigue after enduring his mediocre acting in so many movies lately, A LOT LIKE LOVE is enough to make you completely reevaluate your entire assessment of his acting chops.
And Kutcher's costar, Amanda Peet as Emily, drops her usual harshness to become a playful and remarkably sweet female lead. The chemistry between Kutcher and Peet is genuine and filled with oodles of charm. Their best moment occurs in an upscale Asian restaurant during a date in which they don't talk. Eventually, however, the silence is broken after they start squirting water at each other with their mouths. Believe it or not, the scene isn't the least bit slapstick but instead is full of the joy and spontaneity of what real love and affection is all about.
A LOT LIKE LOVE runs 1:47. It is rated PG-13 for "sexual content, nudity and language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 22, 2005. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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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.
