SHE'S THE ONE
A film review by Bradley Null
Copyright 1996 Bradley Null
With his sophomore effort, SHE'S THE ONE, Edward Burns has made another movie about Irish Catholic brothers that do stupid things to the women they love. Like his first film, THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN, this story is set in and around New York City, and stars Mike McGlone and Burns himself as the aforementioned brothers (only two this time). Also in the mix once again is Maxine Bahns, Burn's real-life love interest, who again stars as Burns's... love interest.
This time around, Burns once again plays slacker to McGlone's uptight business-oriented younger brother. Burns's Mickey, a contented laid-back cab driver, falls in love (with Bahns) and gets married on 24 hours notice. This is ridiculed by his brother Francis (McGlone), who is experiencing relationship problems of his own in the form of a deep-rooted affair that threatens to break up his marriage. The two brothers' problems are linked together by the fact that Francis's young mistress, played by Cameron Diaz, is Mickey's ex-fiancee.
After establishing these relationship problems and throwing in the love quarrels that Burns's father ("Frasier"'s John Mahoney) is having with their mother, Burns allows them to unfold in much the same fashion that similar events unfolded in Burns's first film. First, the brothers talk about their relationships; in the next scene one of the brothers does something impetuous or stupid; as a result, in a subsequent scene, the brothers have to talk about how *that* affected their relationships. All of this makes for a lot of repetition (the story about why Burns broke up with Diaz is brought up at least eight times), and inevitably leads to the point where one of the brothers' wives or girlfriends does something independently impetuous, stupid, or long overdue, at which point, the brothers are forced to talk about *that* and maybe get into a fight. As the movie approaches its inevitable end, though, both brothers are forced to scramble and try to make everything work out.
Despite its strong similarities to Burns's first film, SHE'S THE ONE reveals that Burns has obviously done some growing since then. On the whole, this narrative is much more complex than that of THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN. Unlike his first film, the problems of the brothers are interlinked such that their inevitable brotherly dialogues always hold some sort of interest for both brothers. Burns also displays at one point that his characters do not all have to be completely tactless. This is demonstrated in what is by far the film's most powerful and original scene, a climactic moment between Burns and Diaz in which Burns the director displays a newfound ability to reveal emotion without words. Unfortunately, this is only one brief glimpse of complexity and true movie magic in a film that for the most part rehashes THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN.
RATING: ***
|------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
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-Bradley Null is a filmmaker, guest critic, and brother of Christopher -Christopher Null / null@filmcritic.com / Writer-Producer -Visit the Movie Emporium at http://www.filmcritic.com/ -and Null Set Productions at http://www.filmcritic.com/nullset.htm
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