But it didn't come out right. It's as if they started out to make a serious film and then handed it over to a Wes Anderson type at the last minute. Plot lines that start in a good direction turn unexpectedly goofy. And some side plots that are meant to add humor--Martha Plimpton and her gun, for instance--are simply annoying.
Jude Law plays a scrawny bakery delivery boy who doesn't know when to shut up, and Gretchen Mol is the uptight sophisticate of her family who is already engaged to a man who is perfect for her. He drives the right car and bails her family out financially--she needs those things. So when he wants to buy her a book for her birthday instead of a flowered knit cap--well, Gretchen's character isn't the flowered knit cap type, and all the romantic lecturing of Jude's character about the hat vs. the book, however right in theory, doesn't change that. The movie never satisfactorily established why Gretchen would fall for Jude--in fact, the scene (SPOILER ALERT) where Gretchen and Jude get together, and then the next day she can hardly look at him--that was true to character. What happened later was not.
The best and most believable characters in the film were the mother, well acted by Brenda Blethyn, and the blind sister (Meg Tilly) and her boyfriend, Jesus. I loved Jesus! One last comment--whoever chose the music for this film should be shot--there's one really bad top-40 pop song that cues in more than once when Jude and Gretchen go for the kiss, and it cheapens the scenes.
Jude Law plays a scrawny bakery delivery boy who doesn't know when to shut up, and Gretchen Mol is the uptight sophisticate of her family who is already engaged to a man who is perfect for her. He drives the right car and bails her family out financially--she needs those things. So when he wants to buy her a book for her birthday instead of a flowered knit cap--well, Gretchen's character isn't the flowered knit cap type, and all the romantic lecturing of Jude's character about the hat vs. the book, however right in theory, doesn't change that. The movie never satisfactorily established why Gretchen would fall for Jude--in fact, the scene (SPOILER ALERT) where Gretchen and Jude get together, and then the next day she can hardly look at him--that was true to character. What happened later was not.
The best and most believable characters in the film were the mother, well acted by Brenda Blethyn, and the blind sister (Meg Tilly) and her boyfriend, Jesus. I loved Jesus! One last comment--whoever chose the music for this film should be shot--there's one really bad top-40 pop song that cues in more than once when Jude and Gretchen go for the kiss, and it cheapens the scenes.