Picture Perfect A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1997 Michael Redman
*1/2 (out of ****)
So here's the deal: Kate (Jennifer Aniston) is hungry for advancement in her advertising career but can't get ahead. The owner of the agency tells her that he's reluctant to put her in charge of a major campaign because she still has a college lifestyle, isn't head-over-heels in debt and doesn't owe her soul to the company store.
To look more traditional she fabricates a fiance by claiming that the stranger with her in a photo is her intended. As the lie becomes more complex, she is forced to produce him at a company dinner. Locating Nick (Jay Mohr), she entices him to pretend that they are involved.
The romantic comedy is predictable which is to be expected, but the surprise is that our star is so cold and unfeeling. Nick is obviously taken with her, but she treats him like dirt, preferring Sam (Kevin Bacon) who is only attracted because she is promised to someone else. Nick's naive love in the face of her manipulations is embarrassing and difficult to watch.
Aniston (from television's "Friends") is fetching, has some almost-humanizing mannerisms and does a fine job of almost falling out of her clothes, but is an unsympathetic heroine. Along with the rest of the cast, her character is just a step above one-dimensional.
As with "My Best Friend's Wedding", the gentlewoman is conniving and hatches her schemes to get what she wants without regard to the feelings of others. Then everyone lives happily ever after. Let's hope this model of womanhood dies a deservedly early death.
(Michael Redman has written this column for a long time and will spend Monday, the night of the shooting stars, lying on a remote beach under the open skies awaiting the cosmic skyshow.)
[This appeared in the 8/7/97 "Bloomington Voice" Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be reached at mredman@bvoice.com ]
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