' ' Cinema Romantico: Someone like You (a non-review)

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Someone like You (a non-review)

Unbelievably I had never seen the 2001 rom com “Someone like You”, which did not presage Adele’s immortal pop gut punch a decade later and which was released in the UK under the title “Animal Attraction” because American marketers are more into bland b.s. monikers that only emerge after suffering through a dozen focus groups which pretty much describes how American rom com filmmakers tend to operate these days too. Less isn’t more, nothing is something. Come to think of it, “unbelievably” is perhaps not the word I was looking for there, though it is still something of a, shall we say, minor surprise that “Someone like You” remained unseen by me all these years. That it’s a minor surprise is not only because it stars Ashley Judd (see: this blog’s banner) but also Marisa Tomei, who should be in everything. As I said to My Beautiful, Perspicacious Wife as we fired up the film holding down the 85th spot in the 2001 Box Office sweepstakes during our 2020 Spring Self-Isolated Rom Com Fest and I saw these names drift across my screen, “Did I cast this movie?”

No. I did not cast this movie. Because even if I would have cast Ashley and Marisa, not to mention Ellen Barkin as a talk show host, I might have foregone casting Greg Kinnear as Ash’s good-for-nothing ex. Too obvious. Hugh Jackman is better as Ash’s emergent paramour but, well, is it obvious I’m stalling? I don’t really want to critique “Someone like You”. There is so little to critique. Like a Dial-a-Meal in The Jetsons, just take your single food pill and move on, “Someone like You” felt like Dial-a-Movie, like a transitory cinematic breeze that passed unnoticed in front of my face despite improbably running 97 minutes, every move it makes not so much predictable, which can still be rendered with some flourish, as mechanical. I hardly remember anything. All I really remember is thinking how on Earth could anyone waste the talents of Ashley Judd and Marisa Tomei that badly? What were you doing?

These two should have been...


...more like these two.


Listen, Hollywood, I am not kidding around here. Never waste the considerable skill of these two women again.

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