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Plot Summary
Melanie Carmichael has it all! She has a great job in New York as an up and coming fashion
designer and her charming, romantic boyfriend has just proposed.
The problem is that she also has a husband!
She has been trying to get a divorce from the husband she left in
Alabama but he won’t sign the papers.
She returns to her hometown and husband to try and finalise the
divorce but she finds that things don’t quite go to plan…
Review
This romantic comedy has a
simple lightweight story that is very predictable.
Far too early in the movie it is obvious where it is going and this
would be forgivable in a romantic comedy if there are plenty of laughs but
unfortunately there are only a few big laughs along the road to the
inevitable ending. A lot of the humour is based around the differences between
the “simple folk” of the small Alabama town and the sophisticates from
New York City. There are
plenty of references about the South rising against the “Yankee”
North. This is a bit laboured and loses its funniness by the end of
the movie.
It is hard to say where this
movie goes wrong but it seems to lack the charm of similar movies like
Legally Blonde
or Miss Congeniality.
Also it is difficult to empathise with the characters and while
Reese Witherspoon almost makes it worthwhile her character is not really
that likeable.
The Bottom Line:
Okay as a light rom-com but a bit predictable and it needs a few
more big laughs.
Lasting
thought: In the movie
there are wonderful natural glass sculptures that are caused when
lightening hits sand. I
wonder does that really happen?
Reviewed by Niall Quinn, Premier Movie Reviews
2002 |