The Proposal - DVD Review

'seeing Sandra Bullock apparently doing an impression of a constipated monkey and singing 'the sweat dripped off my balls' just about topped it'

There is a point in The Proposal where any sane person will lose all their faith in it. It comes just over half way through and sees Sandra Bullock's up-tight publishing executive and Betty White's crazy Grandma doing a dance. Round a campfire. To rap music. Now, I've seen a lot of rubbish films insert various unbelievable and too-zany-to-be-true set ups in an attempt to raise a laugh from their audience but seeing Sandra Bullock apparently doing an impression of a constipated monkey and singing 'the sweat dripped off my balls' just about topped them all.

The scene is, of course, awful but there are other larger problems in The Proposal, specifically the leads and their roles: never a good start for what is basically a two-role rom-com. Bullock's Margaret and Ryan Reynold's assistant Andrew supposedly dislike one another but throughout the entire first half I never saw anything more than mild annoyance. Margaret is annoyed at how sad Andrew is to get her two cups of coffee in case he spills one. Andrew is annoyed at how Margaret makes him work overtime. There's never anything there that a good nights sleep wouldn't make them get over.

To keep things interesting in what really is a by-the-numbers rom-com, writer Pete Chiarelli introduces us to Malin Akerman's Gertrude, Andrew's long-lost love that he left in his native Alaska to move to New York. Presumably this is to instill a bit of 'who will he choose' nonsense into the plot but it's completely miss-handled by Director Anne Fletcher who doesn't really give us a strong for or against feeling for either one, leaving you fated to be entirely un-satisfied whoever gets jilted (no prizes for guessing). Apparently the cure for this is then to write the one that does get dropped right out of the plot when it becomes convenient, begging the question: why bother in the first place?

There are some humorous moments but they're never funny enough to save it, nor do they come as frequently as is the accepted norm in this sort of fare. Reynolds and Bullock are both watchable but they don't really do anything, possibly because they aren't really given anything to do. It's unfortunately telling when the funniest moments in a comedy come in the little skits that play out over the end credits, in this case the 'immigration interviews' with various characters, and, unfortunately, this is the case here. It was never intended to be, or going to be, anything more than light entertainment but this is very light indeed.

Look Further...

'chemistry between the leads and supporting players carry an otherwise formula film to fun' - Common Guy's Film Reviews, B