A Lot Like Love (2005, DVD)

When I saw the trailer for A Lot Like Love my first thought was "They remade When Harry Met Sally. That might be fun." A Lot Like Love does share some basic plot points with When Harry Met Sally - boy meets girl, they hit it off, they part ways, they date other people, they periodically drop in on each others' lives, and many years later they finally hook up - but that's really all they have in common. When Harry Met Sally is a comedy highlighting the humor in how we meet and pair up. A Lot Like Love is pure romance with a few funny moments that flow naturally from the relationship.

Oliver and Emily meet on their way to the same flight from Los Angeles to New York. In reaction to a nasty breakup with her boyfriend as he dropped her off at the airport, Emily joins Oliver in the airplane's restroom and the two join the mile high club. They part ways upon arrival, probably expecting to never see each other again. However, Oliver bumps into Emily the next day and they end up wandering around the city together, taking pictures and getting drunk and talking about how they see themselves turning out when they're all grown up and doing those things you expect any pair of almost strangers to do together in a strange city. It's obvious they have chemistry and that there could be something more between the couple, but they part ways and return to their normal lives.

Fast forward three years. Emily's boyfriend breaks up with her right before New Year's Eve and she desperately wants to avoid showing up at the party dateless. She calls everyone in her datebook but they all already have plans. Then a piece of paper with Oliver's parents' number flutters out and she remembers the geeky but willing guy from that trip to New York. She calls, they meet, and again they hit it off. Unfortunately Oliver's moving to San Francisco to launch his internet startup the very next day and yet again they're in a holding pattern.

Next time it's Oliver who suffers the breakup. Guess who he calls to ease his pain? Yup, the pattern continues, but it works. The movies focuses on about six separate short meetings between the pair over the course of seven years, each making it more and more clear that they relate well to each other, that they care about each other, and that they have incredible chemistry together. At the same time, both characters are shown living their lives, doing normal quirky things that people do, and basically being fallible, petty, nice, interesting people.

It's this ability to really make Oliver and Emily feel real despite the very shortened views we get of their lives, that really makes A Lot Like Love work. The first meeting was a bit rushed and awkward and less fleshed out than the rest, but first meetings very often are a bit weird. I imagine that's even more true if the first meeting essentially happens after you've already had hot sweaty sex so that awkwardness worked for me.

I've never been a big fan of Ashton Kutcher, but he seems to be hitting his groove this year as the lead in romantic comedies. I liked him in Guess Who? and I liked him even more here. He was dopey and serious and funny and romantic and gross and supportive in just the right doses. Amanda Peet was a little too perky at times and I infrequently felt like she checked out and glided through a scene without really paying attention to her surroundings, but for the most part she worked. The two were definitely magical together.

Kutcher also had great chemistry with the supporting cast, particularly Oliver's brother and sister. In general, the family relations were very well written and made Oliver feel much more like a real person. This was also very much a movie of details and those details were right most of the time. It's the little things, the scenes where nothing much is actually happening, where the movie shines the brightest. Emily's relationship with her best friend, her main family in the movie, is a bit less fleshed out. It was somewhat stereotypical and less pivotal than Oliver's relationship with his family.

Both Oliver and Emily seem very young when they first meet - we later learn that Oliver is around 22 or 23 - and seem much more grown up during the later meetings. Emily just has two modes - young and older - and doesn't really change much after the second meeting point. Oliver, however, continues to change and grow. In many ways this is more his story than their story; he is definitely the focal point of the movie and the impetus for the changes in their relationship are mostly his. His secondary characters are more fleshed out than hers, his life plans are revealed more than hers, and he has to change and refocus their relationship before she's able to do the same.

Because Kutcher managed this well and really seemed to throw himself into the role of Oliver, I bought these changes. I bought his relationship with Emily and was able to accept her as a fully realized character despite some of the problems with her development because Oliver accepted her as such. I rooted for them because I rooted for him and cared desperately that things work out for him. That's the key to any successful romance, and A Lot Like Love managed to achieve it. It's not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the best romance I've seen in a good long while. If you're in the mood for that sort of thing, give A Lot Like Love a try.