Written by Vickie
June 19, 2009
I really, really, really wanted to love this movie. I was so excited to see it, and was thrilled by the prospect of Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds teaming up onscreen, because I find them both insanely delightful. Unfortunately, their film – despite its stellar ingredients – wasn’t delightful at all. It was disappointing.
Bullock tries to play against type as Margaret Tate, a ruthless, universally feared but hugely successful NYC book editor, who’s hated by her co-workers... most especially, her put-upon assistant, Andrew (Reynolds). But Margaret suddenly has a problem: she’s Canadian, and facing deportation for violating her visa restrictions. In a bold, supremely contrived move, she orders Andrew to marry her as a way of circumventing her immigration woes. If he refuses, she’ll ruin his career in publishing. Reluctantly and through gritted teeth, he agrees.
Their ruse is immediately put to the test by a skeptical immigration official, and a weekend trip to visit Andrew’s family in Alaska, where he and Margaret are forced to shelve their conflicts to pose as a happy couple in front of his parents (Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson), grandmother (Betty White) and angelic ex-girlfriend (Malin Akerman). Not surprisingly, and right on cue, the bickering pair slowly begin to thaw to each other, and new dilemmas arise.
But no one involved in this by-the-book romantic comedy seems interested in pushing the envelope in any way so that the project is elevated from mediocre to magnificent. It’s as though everyone figured getting a passing grade would be good enough and, even though there’s a wealth of material (and talent) from which to cull greatness, nobody bothered. Not the screenwriter, not director Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses) and not even the cast.
Bullock, whom I adore, is not nearly mean or nasty enough as Margaret, who should be a holy terror along the lines of Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prads but who, instead, just seems like a very powerful woman in a slightly bad mood. The filmmakers never really establish why everyone despises her, they simply have characters tell us how awful she is, which is much less effective. She softens too quickly, reveals her insecurities too easily and, thus, the big emotional arc her character deserves is totally lost. It’s hard for an audience to believe she’s growing as a human being if she’s already halfway there, and it’s much less entertaining if her character isn’t an extreme off of which others react.
Reynolds is better. He’s befuddled and confused and frustrated, and works his role as best he can under the circumstances. His chemistry with Bullock is undeniable, but they would both have been better served by a smarter screenplay. Instead, the script for The Proposal feels like an amalgam of other similarly themed opposites-attract comedies and, at more than an hour and 45 minutes, could have used some serious trimming. There’s an entire sequence involving grandma out in the woods doing a tribal dance that has absolutely nothing to do with anything, goes on too long and feels like a total waste of time. Equally problematic is the introduction of Andrew’s ex-girlfriend, who’s so wonderful and sweet and fun that you want to root for her... yet she’s just left high and dry by the film. Just dropped in and then abandoned without a storyline or a resolution, save to be the saintly gal who got away and who’s now alone.
I dunno. When all was said and done, I sat in the theater just feeling let down. There was so much potential for this film to be amazing, but shooting for the middle rarely results in anything better than meh.
