Roger Thomas has written movie reviews for The Stanly News & Press and other outlets for years, long before starting this blog. So we decided it would be good to give readers a sample of his previous work, in addition to posts of reviews of current films. The following is a review that first appeared on Ethicsdaily.com. Other reviews will run daily.
Kate Hudson and Luke Wilson
“Alex and Emma” begins with author Alex needing to finish his next book so he can pay off loan sharks for gambling debts. His life gets more complicated when they destroy his laptop, leaving him no way to finish his work by the 30-day deadline the loan sharks set for him. Then he hires Emma, a stenographer to whom Alex plans to dictate his novel. Emma and Alex have one of those awkward arguing relationships that almost always means in the movies that they are destined for each other. As Alex dictates the novel, the audience is given clips of the novel’s story, acted out by the actors. One also hears all the ways Emma thinks the story should be improved, some suggestions which Alex embraces, others which he refuses to accept.
This plot intends to lead the audience to several questions: Will Alex finish the novel in time to save his own life? Will Alex and Emma fall in love? Are the characters in Alex’s novel based on real persons? To answer any of these questions here would give away too much of the thin plot of this film.
The plot also produces other questions unintentionally: Would Alex’s publisher not give Alex a loan if the writer’s life depended on it? Would he not at least advance him the money for a new laptop? Would a published author really take suggestions from someone he hired to type for him? Would an author risk having his work recorded on a source that could not be saved on a hard drive or disc? Sadly, the filmmakers never intended for anyone to see this movie who would ask such simple logical questions which spoil any hope of enjoying the film.
Besides the many illogical plot devices, “Alex and Emma” does not work for other reasons. The film is not funny, and neither is the novel being written though Alex does describe the book as a comedy. The scenes from the novel are more interesting than the story of Alex and Emma, but that is not a compliment to those scenes. Kate Hudson is always charming but here she is too reserved. Luke Wilson is not an adequate love interest for her. There is no chemistry between the two of them. If the film is neither funny, nor romantic, how can it possibly succeed as a romantic comedy? The answer is simply that it does not succeed.
It is hard for a film to adequately portray the art of writing. Perhaps Alex is not supposed to be a great author. He seems like he is writing for some romance novel company. The process of writing the book here seems neither realistic, nor is it played as a spoof. “Finding Forrester” does a good job of depicting the process of writing. “Bullets Over Broadway,” in which director Rob Reiner had a small acting part, is a gem of a comedy about the creative process of writing. What a shame that Reiner did not learn from master director Woody Allen when they worked together on Bullets.
Usually, when a film is really bad, one can spot at least some potential for what the film might have been. With “Alex and Emma,” it is hard to imagine the film working if it possessed any of the elements of the current film. Toward the end of the movie, Alex makes a comment about something that cost him a lot of money. Considering that most of the money he made from the sale of his book was suppose to go to either the loan sharks, or to pay Emma for her typing, many in the audience may wonder where he got the extra cash. When that is what one is thinking about at the end of a romantic comedy, the film has failed.
Box Office results
Domestic gross: $14,218,698
Foreign gross: $1,150,199
Production budget: $30 million
Opening weekend: $6,111,074
NOTE: Information from Boxofficemojo.com
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