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Picture Perfect
**
Cinema
Releases - January 9,
1998
Rated on a 4-star
scale. USA. Directed by Glenn Gordon Caron. Written by Arleen Sorkin, Paul
Slansky and Glenn Gordon Caron. Starring Jennifer Aniston, Jay Mohr, Kevin
Bacon, Olympia Dukakis, Illeana Douglas, Kevin Dunn.
"Picture Perfect" isn't as bad as
it looks. That's not exactly a compliment, but I find it hard to say anything
more exciting. It's one of those uninvolving films where the good bits are
great, but who cares? -- there aren't enough of them to make us forget about
the dross.
The film stars Jennifer Aniston from the TV show
"Friends", and doesn't quite dispel the impression that it's an attempt to
cash in on that show's success. Its target audiences are probably twentysomething
women who are "Friends" fans and twelve-year-old boys who have Aniston pinups.
I don't suppose they'll mind that it's so slight or silly, but I did. I wasn't
expecting much when I went in, but the film made a big mistake: it raised
my expectations. It doesn't just use Aniston as a selling point,
but gives her some good lines. Her character, advertising worker Kate, has
the same appeal and wit as her "Friends" character.
Even this point of interest, though, is overshadowed
by the fact that the plot is tacky and the characters behave stupidly. The
film starts as Kate discovers that she is no longer that eager to chase men,
which is a pretty obvious indicator that she will spend the rest of the film
either chasing after a man or trying to get herself out of a love triangle.
This film takes the love triangle option, sort of, although I didn't really
care which it took. It starts with Kate attending the very strange wedding
of some friends (why are weddings in poor movies always either a clumsy attempt
at originality or mushy crap?) and having her photo taken with bachelor
photographer Nick (Jay Mohr). Her annoyingly geeky friend Darcy (Illeana
Douglas) quickly shows the picture to Kate's boss, Mercer (Kevin Dunn),
announcing that Kate has a fiancee who hardly ever comes into town. She thinks
she's helping Kate, because Mercer has warned her that she can't expect promotion
without commitments, because of her freedom to switch to another agency.
Of course, Mercer now wants to meet Nick, and Kate finds herself in quite
a predicament. I never understand the mentality of the characters in movies
like this, who allow themselves to get trapped in these situations. Kate
could save herself a film's worth of bother by saying four simple words:
"She was just kidding!"
But no... Nick is tracked down by Kate, and she
arranges that they will indeed have dinner with Mercer, staging a fight during
the meal and pretending to break up. Nick is pleased to help, since he is
very attracted to Kate, but she is too busy to respond, trying to keep her
boyfriend Sam (Kevin Bacon) calm without revealing the full truth of the
deception. Oh sorry... "He's not my boyfriend," she protests at one point,
"We just have sex sometimes."
This film is full of contradictions, and that's
its main problem. It does, I must admit, look like nothing more than a slight
romantic comedy, but since it had the potential to be more I must complain
at its shortcomings. Almost any film has potential, of course, but that of
"Picture Perfect" is on the screen. Sometimes.
I liked the bewildered look on Nick's face while
Kate had eccentric brainwaves. I liked the way she gave him a book full of
revision details about their fake life together. I liked a lot of the smart
lines that Aniston was given.
But if Kate is so intelligent, why is her best
friend a grinding, simple-minded moron? If she is so independent, why doesn't
she tell her nagging mother(Olympia Dukakis) to get lost? If she is so full
of naive integrity, why does she go along with this whole sick game in the
first place? Why don't the writers make clear just what the relationship
is with Kate and Sam, rather than have them playing a few word games and
hoping it worked? Why is Nick a confident, smart guy in the first third of
the film, a pushover wimp in the second, and a robot in the third? Why did
the makers of the film think that anybody would buy that the plot can hinge
on a giant red bruise occurring instantly after an accidental flick, then
disappearing in 36 hours?
If you find time precious but you're still interested
in seeing "Picture Perfect", watch the final scene, which begins as a hilarious
gem and disintegrates into an embarrassment. You'll get the picture. It ain't
perfect.
COPYRIGHT©
1998 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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