Unoriginal 'Must Love Dogs' can't quite sniff out that elusive spark

Friday, July 29, 2005

By WILLIAM ARNOLD
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER MOVIE CRITIC

The publicity for "Must Love Dogs" quotes some early critic or other as saying the movie is "the best romantic comedy of the summer." But according to my calculations, it's the only romantic comedy of the summer so far. No? Think about it. What else has there been?

MOVIE REVIEW

MUST LOVE DOGS

DIRECTOR: Gary David Goldberg
CAST: Diane Lane, John Cusack, Christopher Plummer
RUNNING TIME: 88 minutes
RATING: PG-13 for sexual content
GRADE: C+

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"Mr. and Mrs. Smith?" An overblown action movie. "The Perfect Man?" A Hilary Duff teen movie. "The Wedding Crashers?" A yuk-it-up, R-rated guy movie. "Bewitched?" Only in the loosest sense of the term. Anyway, you get my point. The genre seems to be an endangered species.

So "Dogs" will have to do for a while, and it's not terrible: It offers a handful of funny and touching moments and maintains a level of cuteness. But it's far from original, and its star chemistry doesn't exactly light up the screen.

Diane Lane plays Sarah, a childless, divorced preschool teacher nearing 40 whose husband dumped her for a younger woman, and whose busy-body sister (Elizabeth Perkins) is now trying to hook her up with a succession of unsuitable men.

When the sister lists Sarah on PerfectMatch.com (a Northwest company getting some great product placement here), she meets Jake (John Cusack), a boat-builder whose all-time favorite movie is "Dr. Zhivago" -- which is to say he believes in true love and grand passion.

Of course, the two are meant for each other, but -- for a variety of fairly contrived reasons -- their first date is a clumsy disaster, the second date is almost as bad and the road to their inevitable great-relationship turns out to be a rocky one.

The writer-director is Gary David Goldberg, a TV sit-com veteran ("Family Ties") who doesn't have any new ideas about or insight into Internet dating, but keeps things moving at a brisk pace and gets good performances from his supporting cast (especially Stockard Channing).

Cusack is his usual laid-back, ironic self, but he doesn't seem to have his heart in this role. He also has gained some weight since his last outing, which Goldberg goes to such lengths to disguise behind a variety of bulky jackets and coats that it becomes glaring.

Lane is more appealing. But she played this same character in "Under the Tuscan Sun," and she's added some nervous mannerisms that make her seem rather self-conscious, and in imminent danger of becoming a caricature of herself.

P-I movie critic William Arnold can be reached at 206-448-8185 or williamarnold@seattlepi.com.