“Alex and Emma,” Rob Reiner’s first directing effort in four years, opened in theaters last Friday, grossing just $6.2 million (less than “Rugrats Go Wild!”).
Choppy and disappointingly predictable, “Alex and Emma” fails to live up to the previously tarnished (we all remember “North”) but more recently salvaged reputation of director Rob Reiner.
Writer Alex Sheldon (Luke Wilson) is in a bind. He has blown all of his – and apparently someone else’s – money at the racetrack, and owes Cuban loan sharks $100,000. In order to save his own life, Alex has 30 days to pay up, and the only way to get that kind of cash is by finishing his latest novel, which, on the first of 30 days, consists of only one sentence.
After the Cubans destroy his laptop computer, he must rely on the stenography services of Emma Dinsmore (Kate Hudson) to get the novel out of his head and onto paper. After an awkward meeting, Emma apprehensively agrees to work for free until Alex can pay her.
To Alex’s dismay, Emma is more opinionated than he hoped for, and Alex, more stubborn than Emma likes. Thus begins their love-hate relationship, as together Alex and Emma shape the novel into a finished product, hopefully worthy of $100,000.
The romantic comedy, loosely based on the true story of Fyodor Dostoevsky, (“Crime and Punishment”) as depicted in his “The Gambler,” attempts to take the audience on what could have been a humorously suspenseful ride of a writer down on his luck.
The cinematography is impressive and the scenery beautiful. Wilson and Hudson even act as multiple characters (Hudson plays five), acting out Alex’s adventurous novel before moviegoers’ eyes.
Unfortunately, these qualities become overshadowed, as the audience is exposed to a monotonous 96 minutes of poor writing and ambiguous sub-plots that are more confusing than helpful.
Possibly the worst parts of the film include the annoyingly stereotypical cameos of the foreign characters (most notably the Cuban loan sharks).
Though very handsome, Luke Wilson’s acting leaves something to be desired. Something tells me Wilson was one of those oblivious kids standing at the back of the stage picking his nose during the grade school play. His unassuming, whiny presence on screen downplays an exciting character, preventing a desirable chemistry with Hudson.
Hudson, though plagued with arguably the most terrible Swedish, German and Spanish accents in Hollywood, did a good job of maintaining the shred of chemistry shared with Wilson, but even she failed to convince me she was Emma Dinsmore and not Kate Hudson, America’s new Meg Ryan (just check out the trailer for “Le Divorce”).
The best acting of the film came from Sophie Marceau as Polina Delacroix, the money-hungry seductress from Alex’s past. Polina’s surprise visit later in the movie poses the first threatening conflict of the movie.
As for humor, the number of times I chuckled can be counted on one hand.
The only time I heartily laughed was after hearing the last two lines of the film, perhaps the least appropriate time to do so. The other six people sitting in the theater didn’t seem to mind though.
A creative, humorous and entertaining love story “Alex and Emma” is not. This begs the question, what has the reputable director of such films as “Stand by Me,” “Misery,” and “A Few Good Men” been doing for four years?
Perhaps “Alex and Emma,” incapable of standing up to past Reiner romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally” is a pre-cursor to his next cinematic masterpiece.
