Only Reservations About No Reservations, An Obvious, Sub-par Romantic Comedy

The Good: Looks good, Decent cast
The Bad: Poor use of good acting talent, Predictable story and character arcs, Not funny, Pacing.
The Basics: A surprisingly disappointing outing with cooking and Aaron Eckhart (two things that biased me TOWARD the movie), No Reservations sinks.


I watch a lot of movies, more since I started reviewing, but before that I used to watch movies for fun. I used to also enjoy watching a lot of television series' on DVD . . . before becoming a reviewer. In film and television, I have noticed, there are very few works that actually deal with cooking. In the movies, there are films set in places where cooking takes place, like Clerks II (reviewed here!), but remarkably few movies where people spend time cooking. The world of professional chefs has been glossed over in the short-lived television series' Kitchen Confidential and Chef! (reviewed here!). So, when I had the opportunity to watch No Reservations recently, I was pretty psyched because I heard that it was a romantic comedy about cooks.

If anything, I went into No Reservations with a bias for the work. The film starred Catherine Zeta-Jones who is pretty easy on the eyes and the immensely talented Aaron Eckhart who has not been praised nearly enough for his work in The Dark Knight (reviewed here!). But then, I watched No Reservations and it has taken me days to get up the enthusiasm to write about the experience because it was such a standard romantic comedy. Anyone who has seen a lot of movies and who loves films has seen this before. A lot.

Kate is a high-strung chef at one of New York City's most trendy and expensive restaurants. She is obsessive compulsive and cooking is her life, which makes her ideal for the elite cooking marketplace. Unfortunately for her, when her sister and niece are driving to see her for a visit, they are in a terrible accident and Kate's sister is killed and she becomes the guardian of Zoe. Zoe is young, misses her mother, and Kate is hardly in a place (emotionally) to raise her.

After taking the minimum amount of time her boss demands she take off following the death of her sister, Kate returns to work to discover Nick is working her job in the kitchen. Nick is talented and qualified, but his style is more laid back (he has music on in the kitchen!) and about the experience of cooking, as opposed to simply the results. Nick and Zoe bond almost immediately, much to Kate's chagrin and soon Kate is finding Nick's merit as a chef and lover.

No Reservations is exactly as it sounds: a romantic comedy where the child becomes the reason two people hook up. As a result, there are contrived concepts that have been done to death in the movies, like Zoe creating situations for Nick and Kate to spend time together and the inevitable "Zoe runs away, leaving Nick and Kate to find her" scene that seems like a standard the moment one has a young person trying to get two adults together.

The thing that doesn't make much sense is the character of Zoe. The argument can be made that she is striving to get Kate and Nick together to recreate the ideal family of mother, father and her. The thing is, she never had that. Her father split long ago according to the earliest scenes and so on some level she ought to be used to the single mother routine, even more than Kate would be. So, Zoe's seeming dependence upon Kate and Nick ending up together for her happiness seems far-fetched and problematic. One could argue that this represents the greatest opportunity for Zoe as far as wish fulfillment for a "normal," stable family, but it does not come across that way in No Reservations. Instead, it just seems sloppy and generic characterization and Zoe comes across more as a brat than traumatized.

No Reservations is not, truly, a cooking movie, though it does feature people cooking at various points in the film, as well as people eating. For those who love food, there is something to be said for the direction in the film. Scott Hicks directs the film well and presents a very sensual looking film. The food throughout looks edible and sumptuous and it's an easy film to watch in terms of the look of the movie.

Unfortunately, that's the best I've got for it. No Reservations is boring and its characters are hardly as mature or well-developed as one might want. Instead, this is a film trading on casting and it is an unfortunate use for virtually everyone involved. Patricia Clarkson is decent as Paula and Bob Balaban is stuck in the role of therapist playing it like we have seen him play so many other (similar) roles. And Abigail Breslin embodies Zoe, clearly trading on her popularity as a child actor in a very tight market at what might well be her peak years. Her performance is not the best one we've seen from her.

In addition to making all of the food and locations look good, director Scott Hicks deserves some real credit: he has the ability to make Aaron Eckhart bland. Eckhart's performance is the most dull I've ever seen from him. He was cast for his smile, no doubt, but the spark that defines his energy is completely lacking in No Reservations. It is almost like he knew he was stuck in a romantic comedy that had been done to death and he was playing an archetype as opposed to a character.

At least Eckhart had some talent to seriously compromise. Catherine Zeta-Jones might - most of the roles I have seen her in she is used for her physicality more than her Thespian qualities. In No Reservations, her part is pretty much relegated to pouting and staring blankly at the screen in shock as a vague expression of her character being lost. It flops horribly for her. Zeta-Jones fails to make an emotional connection with the audience before she begins these dazed looks and it further slows down the pacing of the film. If Eckhart is bland as Nick, Zeta-Jones is whatever state of uber-boring is beyond that as Kate.

The end result is a film that is not funny enough to be a comedy, not romantic enough to be a romance and too predictable to have any real dramatic tension. This was a surprise to me; unfortunately, not a pleasant one.

For other films with Abigail Breslin, please check out my reviews of:
Zombieland
Definitely, Maybe
The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement
Signs

3.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Latest Cinematic Nicholas Sparks Film Leaves Even The Romantic Sighing In Boredom.

The Good: Moments of genuine passion, Performances.
The Bad: The characters are all archetypes (and obvious ones at that), Little on-screen chemistry with leads, Plot is very predictable and contrived.
The Basics: The Lucky One requires more suspension of disbelief and sensibility in an attempt to make a romance film that never quite pops.


Something interesting happened this year at the movie theaters. First, February was not a complete wash as movies that were actually decent made an appearance in that usually dreadful month. And, it seems, most of the crap that usually occupies February was not just pushed back to March. As it turns out, it may well have been pushed back to late-April. Apparently, and I’m just spitballing here, the major movie studios decided to push out good films before The Hunger Games (reviewed here!) and then just dump their crap in the weeks that followed it under the notion that they couldn’t possibly have competed (I would have liked to see them try, frankly!). This week, as a weird week of The Hunger Games drizzling out and before The Avengers (reviewed here!) officially kicks off Summer Blockbuster season, seems to be an especially dreadful one for new releases. There are Saturday night reruns this weekend that look like they might have a better chance of making money than some of the releases hitting theaters this weekend!

I use this as the preface to my review of The Lucky One because when I keep editing out the phrase “one-trick pony,” the review keeps coming up dreadfully short. And, I’d rather rant for a moment about how bad the cinematic field is at the moment than continue on a long diatribe on how movie studios treat women like idiots. The studios do, though, and The Lucky One is ample evidence of that. While this year’s The Vow (reviewed here!) managed to have a creative hook for its contrived love story, The Lucky One does not even have that. Instead, it is just contrived and director Scott Hicks almost appears to know that as he fills the dreadfully dull film up with long interstitial shots of scenery and people looking off longingly. And they’re pretty much all Hollywood beautiful twigs, so The Lucky One is pretty much what passes (in mainstream culture) for porn for women: good looking guy (I want him) meets good looking woman (I want to look like her) who is not really happy in her life (I can understand that) and has a son (which every woman must want!) and an abusive separated husband (because we all go for the bad boys when we’re young) and the good guy falls for her while committing a pretty serious lie of omission (which is forgivable because there’s no one else in the entire world out there for me, especially one that looks so good and treats my kid so well). And, oh, there’s the sage maternal figure (which someday I hope to be). My point here, which I assume most of my readers are smart enough to infer is that The Lucky One is just a long train of Hollywood clichés that prolong the fairy tale romance ideals indoctrinated in our girls making life for actual, emotionally aware and mature women just that much more difficult. And virtually impossible for men (except the absolutely rich ones).

(Imagine how long that would have been had I not spent some time writing about the state of film today!)

Serving in Iraq is dangerous work, especially as solders are compelled to stay for additional tours. Logan Thibault is a U.S. Marine who bends down one day to pick up a photograph of a hot blonde he sees in the rubble and, in the process, he narrowly avoids getting blown up. Believing the photograph is his lucky charm now, he holds onto it as he serves out his final of three tours of duty. Shipped back to the U.S., Logan decides to track down the woman in the picture, who turns out to be Beth Clayton. Logan meets her at the kennels at which Beth works for her Nana. Before Logan can tell Beth why he is there, she leaps to the conclusion that he is responding to the advertisement for help and Nana hires Logan to do chores around the kennels.

It is not long before Logan’s kindness toward Beth’s eight year-old son Ben and his abilities around the kennels endears Logan to Beth. Their romance blooms with Nana’s encouragement. As Beth’s life begins to turn around, her estranged husband, the local bullying sheriff comes to challenge Beth’s custody of Ben and break up the relationship. All the while, Logan’s reason for tracking Beth down acts as a ticking time bomb of truth waiting to corrupt the good thing they have.

The lie – overt or by omission – has become a pretty pathetic plot device (I refuse to characterize it as a function of character) in the romantic drama movie. In The Lucky One it is utterly unfathomable. In general terms, the strong, otherwise smart male characters like Logan fall for a woman who has been betrayed, mistreated and/or lied to by a pretty obvious Alpha Male with serious character issues. The number one thing a guy like Logan can do to differentiate himself from a jerk like Keith is to be absolutely honest. But, no, apparently Logan is generally unrattled by wartime, but suffers from crippling shyness when it comes to answering simple, direct questions from women he has built up in his mind. It’s worse in The Lucky One because honesty early in the film would have saved Beth a whole lot of heartache as she worries about her missing brother.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all the substance there is in The Lucky One. As is the habit in such movies, Logan is a jack-of-all-trades, which endears him further to Beth. This is in sharp contrast to Keith, who comes across as a monolithic character who is sheriff 24/7, in the home as on the streets. In The Lucky One, this fails to make it seem even remotely plausible that Beth and Keith ever would have been an item. Beth, however, is an archetype of her own, the modern archetype of a young woman who made all her mistakes early in life (though she would never call having Ben a mistake) and is now finding herself in her young twenties and (finally) figuring out what is important to her.

With the characters being pretty much a wash, it comes to the actors to save The Lucky One. Fortunately, they largely do what they need to in their somewhat obvious roles. Zac Efron plays Logan with both strength and quiet certainty. He manages to make Logan not seem like a nitwit when the character cannot come clean with Beth. Taylor Schilling plays the young mother Beth well, though it’s not much of a stretch for her to play a mid-twenties woman. Blythe Danner, however, steals the film from her (and everyone else) in every scene she is in. Danner is articulate, mature and has a presence that draws the eye much more than anyone else in The Lucky One

The film is hampered some, as well, by the lack of chemistry between Schilling and Efron. On-screen, the two go through the motions as Logan and Beth, but there is no performed spark between them. Instead, Efron seems reserved at some moments when Logan is making his moves and Schilling’s body language is more often one of disinterest than compliance. The result is the while the rest of the performances are, at the very least, fine, the actual romantic aspects come across as forced or unreal as opposed to truly passionate or romantic.

Ultimately, The Lucky One suffers as a blasé romantic drama that is exactly what Nicholas Sparks is known for. Unfortunately, he has played this card several times already as a writer and changing up the cast and minor plot details, alas, does not make a particularly satisfying new movie experience.

For other films with Blythe Danner, please check out my reviews of:
Paul
Meet The Parents
The Love Letter
Forces Of Nature
The X-Files: Fight The Future>

4/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for other films I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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