MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Proposal'

From today's Oregonian....

My problems with "The Proposal" began almost immediately: We meet workaholic New York editrix Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) as she exercises, eats right, negotiates a tough deal before breakfast with a difficult writer and discreetly fires a lazy, pretentious chump who's bad for her company after giving him several chances to succeed.

In other words, if she were a male executive in a movie, this would be held up as exemplary behavior. But because it's Sandra Bullock, all her co-workers (and we the audience) are asked to think of her as a "bitch." And then we're supposed to delight in her humiliation after her long-suffering but equally workaholic assistant (Ryan Reynolds) gets the upper hand when he agrees to marry Margaret (a Canadian!) so she can stay in New York.

(This includes Reynolds grabbing Bullock's ass several times and forcing her to get down on her knees in public, complete with a two-shot of a kneeling Bullock and Reynolds' crotch; I was frankly surprised when I found out "The Proposal" was directed by a woman.)

Reynolds is an absolute master at being funny in terrible movies, and he gets in a few decent one-liners, but even he can't surf the tsunami of weaksauce that is "The Proposal." The movie's lazy, formulaic story -- written by male Hollywood exec Peter Chiarelli under a female pseudonym -- quickly becomes an excruciating waste of talent; you can see story developments coming like semi trucks on a New Mexico highway. The film is flat and false in the exact same way that director Anne Fletcher's last rom-com "27 Dresses" was flat and false.

If you want to see a romantic comedy starring Ryan Reynolds that's actually sort of funny and well-made, skip this and rent "Definitely, Maybe."
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C-minus; 107 minutes; rated PG-13 for sexual content, nudity and language.

'The Proposal' (The Oregonian, Friday, June 19, 2009)

Comments

[Bowler]

while watching the proposal, i got the feeling that Sandra Bullock is too old to be Ryan Reynold's girlfriend/fiance