Life Or Something Like It Review
by Eugene Novikov (eugenen AT wharton DOT upenn DOT edu)July 3rd, 2002
Life or Something Like It (2002)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
"Tomorrow it is going to hail. Oh, and next Thursday, you're going to die."
Starring Angelina Jolie, Edward Burns, Tony Shalhoub, Stockard Channing. Directed by Stephen Herek. Rated PG-13.
Making a "feather-light" comedy isn't an excuse for making a bad movie. You don't have to have ambition, but you do need a good cameraman and script. Life or Something Like It wants nothing more than to be a fluffy, insignificantly uplifting, new-age-for-dummies romantic comedy, but director Stephen Herek works with a lumbering hand, and his script is too neutral and timid to actually make us laugh. And then the movie cheats, and I got really upset.
I liked both the film's premise and, with the exception of Ed Burns, its cast, so even when the dire reviews started appearing, I was hardly discouraged. The result was somewhere between my hopes and the bemoanings of my peers. Angelina Jolie plays Lanie Kerrigan, a local Seattle tv news personality whose hair is the most significant thing about not only her appearance but also everything that comeso out of her mouth. She bickers lovingly with her camera man (Burns) and maintains a frustrating long-distance relationship with her pro baseball player boyfriend, which means that she and the former will embrace passionately by the film's end.
One day, after being told that she is going to be nominated for a national position, she has to interview a homeless kook who has a reputation for being able to predict the future. After she consescends to him thoroughly, he tells her that tomorrow it will hail, and that next Thursday, she is going to die. The next day, it hails.
So now Lanie has to deal with the sudden prospects of career advancement, her never-there boyfriend and the nonchalant presence of her free-spirit camera man all while "I'm soon going to die" is buzzing in the back of her mind.
It's not a bad idea, even if it's not terribly original, and for a while, the film is able to coast simply on its premise and the charisma of its lead actress. But then the threads precariously holding this stale wafer of a movie together start to break one by one. First, it becomes evident that Life or Something Like It is going for pseudo-metaphysical uplift rather than the laughs that seem ripe for the picking.
To that end, the movie supplies an ending that is the biggest chunk of nonsense I've seen since The Saint. It breaks its own rules, wanting to have its cake and eat it, too. The result, without giving too much away, is a terminally soapy conclusion that predictably takes the middle ground between two extreme scenarios. It's not as shockingly bad as the ending of Frailty, which ruined a movie that was otherwise infinitely better than this one, but it's still a groaner.
There's still Angelina Jolie though, the woman who somehow earned Tomb Raider a passing grade. And the movie's utter inconsequentialness, coupled with the few throwaway gags it offers makes it a fairly painless experience.
Grade: C+
©2002 Eugene Novikov
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