SHE'S THE ONE
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Edward Burns, Mike McGlone, Maxine Bahns, Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz, John Mahoney. Screenplay: Edward Burns. Director: Edward Burns. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
When an independent film-maker gets his first studio deal, the fans of his or her previous work often worry what will happen when he or she "goes Hollywood." There are sound historical reasons for such concern (think of Lee Tamahori's MULHOLLAND FALLS or Antonia Bird's MAD LOVE, if you are one of the few people who actually saw them), but in the case of Edward Burns, such concern would seem to be misplaced. For an independent feature, THE BROTHERS McMULLEN was about as mainstream as they come, a low-key charmer unlikely to offend anyone who wasn't a devout Catholic with a short fuse. With a budget about 120 times greater than McMULLEN, Burns has made SHE'S THE ONE, a film just as unlikely to offend...and, unfortunately, equally unlikely to entertain.
Burns and Mike McGlone, who were two-thirds of THE BROTHERS McMULLEN, again play siblings in SHE'S THE ONE. Mickey Fitzpatrick (Burns) is an under-motivated cab driver; his younger brother Francis (McGlone) is an over-motivated stock broker. What they have in common are significant problems with women: Mickey has never quite gotten over catching his then-fiancee with another man three years earlier, and Francis is cheating on his wife Renee (Jennifer Aniston) with Heather (Cameron Diaz), a business colleague. When Mickey marries a woman named Hope (Maxine Bahns) after a whirlwind 24 hour courtship, at least one of the brothers appears headed for happiness...until he learns what his ex-fiancee has been up to since they parted.
If there was any real criticism leveled at THE BROTHERS McMULLEN, it was that it was simply a testosterone-enhanced version of a female bonding film, in which the female characters existed primarily to give the men something to complain about while sharing a beer. At times, SHE'S THE ONE feels like Burns' sheepish apology for that aspect of McMULLEN, a piece of sensitive self-flagellation. "Look how we men make everything in our lives -- our jobs, our hobbies, our fantasies -- more important than our wives," he says sub-textually. "Don't we deserve whatever we get?"
It's a nice gesture, this throwing open of the doors to the Boys Only Club, but Burns doesn't support it with characters who ring true, male or female. Burns himself has a pleasant, likeable quality, but we are never given any insight into why he would be impetuous enough to marry a near-complete stranger. His dramatic range appears limited to mild annoyance and affability, and Burns the actor can't bring to the screen whatever hidden passions Burns the writer might have put on paper. Still, that's at least twice the range of Maxine Bahns (Burns' real-life girlfriend who also played his love interest in McMULLEN yet for some reason is billed "Introducing Maxine Bahns" in ads for SHE'S THE ONE). Let me make this point as subtly as I can: Bahns did not get this part because she had a particularly good audition; she reads a line as though she were going through the script underlining it with her finger. Mike McGlone contributes a generic selfish, corporate go-getter, and John Mahoney tones down his "Frasier" crankiness just a touch as the Fitzpatricks' dad.
Much of the pre-release interest, however, will be focused on the other two main cast members. Cameron Diaz, the latest Next Big Thing as of 7:00 p.m. PDT, provides the same punch of smart sexuality she brought to THE MASK, and works wonders with a part which could have been a sneering bitch in other hands. As for Jennifer Aniston, she of the hit television series and ubiquitous coiffure, don't expect a leading role just because she is receiving top billing in SHE'S THE ONE; it's alphabetical. Her part is actually relatively small, but she gets some of the best and most poignant scenes. She has an effective, almost silent moment in which she slips into bed next to disinterested husband McGlone in a sexy new negligee, only to have him ignore her completely. While Burns seems unwilling to break her of the habit of saying "okay" before nearly every line, her work is still quite solid.
There are moments like Aniston's failed seduction which have a spark either of honesty or humor (a montage in which the cast members try to decide whether Francis might be gay is cleverly done), but they prove more the exception than the rule in SHE'S THE ONE. It's all very casual and under-stated, but it feels like an extended sit-com -- no character too deep, no problem too complicated. I guess you could say that Edward Burns has indeed "gone Hollywood," in the most unfortunate sense of the term.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 brotherly lugs: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~srenshaw
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