Once upon a time, a bunch of interns got in a room and decided they were going to make a movie. The smart one said "We should make a romantic comedy about the challenges of trying to date when you're the president's daughter and how the hectic, over-protective nature of that title gets in the way of your finding true happiness because the good guys get scared off so much." The six drunk ones said "Yeah! Except let's take out all the romance, all the comedy, get some dumb blonde like Mandy Moore to take her clothes off over and over again and then find a place for us in it! …And let's get's that Entourage guy 'cause that's a good show." The smart one stormed out of the room in disgust. The drunk ones stayed and scripted Chasing Liberty, a pale, emotionless snoozefest of a love story that I'm glad I picked because it's difficult to rip on good movies like what I've gotten the last few days, so a "turn your brain to mashed potatoes" film is a nice, refreshing change of pace.
Mandy Moore plays Anna Foster, a 12-year old…I'm sorry…18-year old (how could I have messed that up, I wonder?) girl who just wants time away from the craziness that is being the President's daughter. She's constantly surrounded by Secret Service, can't keep a boyfriend for longer than a month and refuses to blame even a little piece of that on the fact that she's a fucking dunce. Seeing an opportunity to get away when she's forced to take a diplomatic trip to Prague, she "escapes" the clutches of her parent's protective regime with the exception of two agents: Cynthia and that Entourage guy, and travels free across Europe with help from photographer/love interest/catatonic wind-up toy Ben (Matthew Goode).
Anna and Ben's story pretty much stays in auto-pilot from that point on, hopping from city to city, meeting random people who create challenging situations but never have to own up to them because that kind of realism just takes away from the movie. One guy manages to steal their wallets and run off. They meet up with him later and act as though nothing happened. He gets a slap on the wrist (despite not actually returning anything) and they all share a good laugh; it's only the White House credit card and all of the First Daughter's identification. No biggie. You do remember that's she's the First Daughter right? Does that even matter anymore? Where's that smart guy that walked out of the room?
Despite the fact that Liberty's main subjects were wrapped up in a non-romantic journey that seemed to be assembled by mad libs, the movie did find charm through the two SS agents following the couple making sure things didn't get TOO out of hand (I mentioned she only "escaped" right? Yeah…everyone allowed that to happen and it gets worse but I won't ruin it.). Those two are Cynthia and Alan (veteran acting ringers Annabella Sciorra and Jeremy Piven) whose story really felt more like a real romantic comedy than the rest of the movie.
Alan is madly attracted to Cynthia, who says she won't have it, but he's not afraid to try with playful advances and recognition that this journey through Europe really could be the best date imaginable. Alan tries to sneak that into his moments with Cynthia and like a good love story, you can see this childish glee starting to break through her stubborn heart. The two have worked together for so long that their forced tolerance of each other's quirks has evolved into understanding and again into cautious attraction and necessity. To be honest, this movie should have been about them and would have been much better if their story officially took the driver's seat. Those two together showed us how it was supposed to be done, with chemistry, humor, and that secret rooting for Alan to get the girl…but damn it, cut to Dunce and Wind-up Toy and what are they up to? Oh look! A Gondola Ride? Bungee Jumping?! A Rave Party? Is that musical guest, The Roots?! And oh, wow! A Hostel that we can stay at! Nothing ever goes wrong there! Where's those pills that the lovable character who stole our wallets and gave us stickers said would help us fall asleep?
Chasing Liberty did not feel like a romantic comedy. It felt like a glorified Disney "teen girl power let's live life and be happy with our friiiiiiii(hold the note…)endssss. Yay!" movie that had the cute guy love story in there because that's how you get teenage girls to watch it. Yet it tried to convince that no…this was a romantic comedy, honestly.
Here's a basic rule for romantic comedies. If you're going to have a happy ending, it is not just your job to convince the audience that everything was worth it so the happy couple could be together. It is your job to convince us that they are going to be happy much longer than the movie's ending. I didn’t' walk away feeling that for Anna and Ben. There was no development of that relationship, they only got together because they were together through the whole movie, but that was more out of convenience than anything. Liberty just didn't get any part of the genre right…except for Cynthia and Entourage guy.
I give this a nauseating 4 dustbusters out of 10, the only saving grace being Sciorra and Piven. Other than that, this was really just a waste of my time, as will it be yours.
No comments:
Post a Comment