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http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.d.../ENTERTAINMENT03/504220364/1005/ENTERTAINMENT
There's a lot to like in comedy 'A Lot Like Love'
Oliver (Ashton Kutcher) serenades Emily (Amanda Peet) with a Bon Jovi song outside of her Los Angeles apartment in "A Lot Like Love." -- Photo provided by Touchstone Pictures
A Lot Like Love
• Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Amanda Peet.
• Locations: AMC Clearwater, Greenwood Park; Great Escape; Kerasotes Showplace 12, Showplace 16, Traders Point; Legacy; Loews Cherry Tree, College Park; Regal Shiloh, Village Park; UA Circle Centre, UA Eagle Highlands, UA Galaxy.
• Running time: 107 minutes.
• Rating: PG-13; profanity and innuendo.
By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel
She makes the first move, on the airplane, in the bathroom.
He's smitten.
"Don't, you'll ruin it," she says. "It's our little secret."
She has all the best lines.
"You're not even close to my type."
And she calls the shots.
"That's strike three."
Just when you despair that a whole generation could grow up without a decent date movie, without a romantic comedy that works well enough to call its own, Ashton Kutcher goes and surprises you. OK, shocks you.
Credit the charms of "an older woman," the always-funny Amanda Peet.
It starts with a hookup. And even though it takes years -- seven to be exact -- something could come from that close encounter at 30,000 feet. And it might look "A Lot Like Love."
Nigel Cole, the Brit who made "Calendar Girls" and "Saving Grace," doesn't hide his first-time screenwriter's thefts. Actor-turned-writer Colin Patrick Lynch steals from "Four Weddings and a Funeral," and steals often. But if you're going to plagiarize your romantic-comedy riffs, might as well steal from the best.
Kutcher is Oliver, a young man with "a plan," to get "my ducks in a line, or row." That means get his Internet start-up (diaperrush.com) off the ground, get the nice house, nice car, and then the wife and 1.5 kids.
Emily (Peet) is his opposite, an impulsive punkette given to taking up with musicians, actors and such. Every time she busts up with somebody, she tracks down Oliver. A New Year's here, a road trip there, ducks in or out of rows, they connect, or fail to, for seven years.
The story ambles at its own pace, content to work for warm grins instead of belly laughs. There's a deaf brother ("Four Weddings"), an irascible punk sister ("Four Weddings" again), a cemetery visit (ditto) or two and a wedding (you guessed it).
What makes this plagiarism work is the winning pair at the heart of it. Blame it on his real-life relationship with an older woman or his simple maturing, but Kutcher is clicking with leading ladies these days.
And Peet, the toothy tease with the laughing eyes, makes him better. She lands most of the laughs in this, and brings almost all of the pathos. If we worry about them never getting together, it's because we worry for her.
Too many scenes don't advance the plot, and few of the promising peripheral characters (Tyrone Giordano is Grahame, the very funny deaf brother; Kal Penn of "Harold and Kumar" is a wacky business associate) are given enough to do.
But this is a clever theft, a charmer with a hint of the bittersweet. It's not the perfect romantic comedy, but when that finally does come, it'll look a lot like "A Lot Like Love."
I met Tyrone Giordano once. A nice fella, too
There's a lot to like in comedy 'A Lot Like Love'
Oliver (Ashton Kutcher) serenades Emily (Amanda Peet) with a Bon Jovi song outside of her Los Angeles apartment in "A Lot Like Love." -- Photo provided by Touchstone Pictures
A Lot Like Love
• Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Amanda Peet.
• Locations: AMC Clearwater, Greenwood Park; Great Escape; Kerasotes Showplace 12, Showplace 16, Traders Point; Legacy; Loews Cherry Tree, College Park; Regal Shiloh, Village Park; UA Circle Centre, UA Eagle Highlands, UA Galaxy.
• Running time: 107 minutes.
• Rating: PG-13; profanity and innuendo.
By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel
She makes the first move, on the airplane, in the bathroom.
He's smitten.
"Don't, you'll ruin it," she says. "It's our little secret."
She has all the best lines.
"You're not even close to my type."
And she calls the shots.
"That's strike three."
Just when you despair that a whole generation could grow up without a decent date movie, without a romantic comedy that works well enough to call its own, Ashton Kutcher goes and surprises you. OK, shocks you.
Credit the charms of "an older woman," the always-funny Amanda Peet.
It starts with a hookup. And even though it takes years -- seven to be exact -- something could come from that close encounter at 30,000 feet. And it might look "A Lot Like Love."
Nigel Cole, the Brit who made "Calendar Girls" and "Saving Grace," doesn't hide his first-time screenwriter's thefts. Actor-turned-writer Colin Patrick Lynch steals from "Four Weddings and a Funeral," and steals often. But if you're going to plagiarize your romantic-comedy riffs, might as well steal from the best.
Kutcher is Oliver, a young man with "a plan," to get "my ducks in a line, or row." That means get his Internet start-up (diaperrush.com) off the ground, get the nice house, nice car, and then the wife and 1.5 kids.
Emily (Peet) is his opposite, an impulsive punkette given to taking up with musicians, actors and such. Every time she busts up with somebody, she tracks down Oliver. A New Year's here, a road trip there, ducks in or out of rows, they connect, or fail to, for seven years.
The story ambles at its own pace, content to work for warm grins instead of belly laughs. There's a deaf brother ("Four Weddings"), an irascible punk sister ("Four Weddings" again), a cemetery visit (ditto) or two and a wedding (you guessed it).
What makes this plagiarism work is the winning pair at the heart of it. Blame it on his real-life relationship with an older woman or his simple maturing, but Kutcher is clicking with leading ladies these days.
And Peet, the toothy tease with the laughing eyes, makes him better. She lands most of the laughs in this, and brings almost all of the pathos. If we worry about them never getting together, it's because we worry for her.
Too many scenes don't advance the plot, and few of the promising peripheral characters (Tyrone Giordano is Grahame, the very funny deaf brother; Kal Penn of "Harold and Kumar" is a wacky business associate) are given enough to do.
But this is a clever theft, a charmer with a hint of the bittersweet. It's not the perfect romantic comedy, but when that finally does come, it'll look a lot like "A Lot Like Love."
I met Tyrone Giordano once. A nice fella, too
