The Proposal: Review

Wes Craven, during his vastly overrated 'Scream', gave us a list of cliches that you would find in an horror movie. Someone now needs to make a Scream-type film in which they list the cliches of the romantic comedy. If that is not possible, then just go and see this pile of tripe and you will get them all. Every single one of them.

Sandra Bullock plays a cold-hearted publishing editor who is threatened with deportation back to Canada, that she comes up with a plan: to have a business deal with her assistant, Ryan Reynolds, in which they are to marry and he would get a promotion, in order to keep her in her job and in new York. Of course Immigration is suspicious of the forth-coming wedding but allows the couple to fly off to Alaska, where Reynolds family live, for his Gran's 90th birthday. The pair, of course, hate each other, but I don't have to tell you what happens, you probably already know.

If ever there was a film that ticked every box when he comes to formulas, this does, except one...it's not that funny. Sure there are the 'embarrassing' set pieces (the pair fall on each other naked blah blah blah) but this just isn't good enough, especially when there are plenty of romantic comedies that have done this sort of thing so much better.

Before I go on, I do like some rom-coms. When Harry Met Sally is a classic, and The Truth About Cats And Dogs is an underrated masterpiece, but this just smacks of cynical film making, with so many questions that are left unanswered. For example, if the Immigration people were so concerned that fraud was being committed, would they honestly allow them to go off for three days to 'learn' about each other? I mean, really.

Bullock and Reynolds are appealing leads, but that is far from enough to keep the film alive. We also have that other stable of rom-coms, the slightly embarrassing elderly, played by Betty White.

This is shallow, unimaginative stuff, and we will keep getting crap like this delivered to our screens time and time again until someone stands up and says 'This has been done before. We should stop going to these films.' Unfortunately, I can't see this ever happening.