Here is a movie for people who haunt the aisles of the Clip stores searching for 1950s romances. I could have seen it at the Princess Theater in Urbamãng cầu in 1959. Maybe I did. It"s retro in every respect, a thắm thiết comedy in a world so innocent that a lifetime is settled with a kiss. And because it embraces its innocence lượt thích a lucky charm, it works, for those willing khổng lồ allow it. Others will respond with a horse laugh, & although I cannot quarrel with them I vì not giới thiệu their sentiments.
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Maybe it"s something to lớn vị with Kate Bosworth"s smile. She plays Rosalee Futch, a check-out clerk at the Piggly Wiggly in Fraser"s Bottom, W.Va. Her manager, who she has known since they were children, is Pete Monash (Topher Grace). He loves her, but can"t bring himself khổng lồ tell her so. Then she wins a conchạy thử to lớn have a date with Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel), a Hollywood star whose agent thinks his image could use a little touch-up after a supermarket tabloid photographs hlặng speeding, drinking, letching & littering all at the same time.
Well, of course, Rosalee is ecstatic about the trip lớn L.A., the stretch limo, the suite at the W khách sạn, the expensive sầu dinner date, and the moment when she teeters on the brink when Tad invites her khổng lồ his home, & then says, gee ... you know, it"s late & I have sầu khổng lồ fly trang chủ tomorrow. That she is a virgin goes without saying. What she can"t anticipate is that Tad will follow her baông xã to lớn Fraser"s Bottom, because there was something in her innocence, her freshness, her honesty, that appealed lớn an empty place deep inside hlặng.
Within days he has purchased a house in West Virginia, taken her lớn dinner several times at the local diner, và made friends with her father Henry (Gary Cole), who starts surfing Variety.com and wearing a Project Greenlight T-shirt.
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As it happens, I"m reading Tolstoy"s Anmãng cầu Karenina right now, và for some foolish reason Rosalee started to lớn remind me of Kitty, the ingenue in the novel. She and a good man named Levin have sầu long been in love sầu, but she"s swept off her feet by the sudden admiration of a snake named Count Vronsky, and rejects Levin when in fact her fate is lớn be his wife, and Vronsky"s love sầu is a mirage. Just today I read the charming pages where Levin và Kitty, too shy lớn speak their hearts, play a word game in order to find out if they have survived Vronsky with their love still intact. I was startled by how happy it made me when they got their answers right.
"Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" could have sầu had a similar effect, since there is a real possibility that Rosalee will wed the sliông xã Tad instead of the steady Pete. But it doesn"t have that kind of impact, because of a crucial misjudgment in the screenplay & casting. To begin with, Josh Duhamel is more appealing than Topher Grace -- maybe not in life, but certainly in this movie, where he seems sincere within the limits of his ability, while the store manager always seems to have sầu a pebble in his shoe. And then the movie devotes much more screen time khổng lồ Rosalee & Tad than lớn Rosalee & Pete -- so much more that even though we know the requirements of the formula, we expect it to be broken with a marriage to lớn Tad. And yet -- what is the function of Pete, within the closed economy of a screenplay, except khổng lồ be the hometown boy she should marry?
You can guess for yourself (very easily) what decision she finally comes lớn, but let me observe sầu that the courtship between Rosalee and Tad is charming, warm, cute và applaudable, & that Pete spends a great giảm giá of time grumping about in the store office và making plans to go off to lớn Richmond & become a business major. In 1959, or any other year, a movie like this would have sầu known enough khổng lồ make Tad inkhổng lồ more of a slickster. There is the strangest feeling at the kết thúc of the film that Rosalee might have sầu made the wrong choice.
That imbalance at least has the benefit of giving a formula movie more suspense than it deserves. And I liked it, too, for the way it played Tad và Hollywood more or less straight, instead of diving into lớn wretched excess. The dream date is handled with lots of little touches that will warm the innards of PG-13 females in the audience, & the movie wants to be gentle, not raucous in its comedy. Kate Bosworth holds it all together with a sweetness that is beyond calculation.
Note: That leaves just one other elbow sticking out of the saông chồng. Tad"s agent & manager, played by Nathan Lane & Sean Hayes và both named Richard Levy, are so over the top that they break the mood in their scenes. For Lane, "Win a Date" represents yet another peculiar career choice in the movies, a medium where he is successful mostly when heard but not seen, as voice-over talent. To be sure, this isn"t the suicidal career move sầu of his decision to play Jacqueline Susann"s husb& in "Isn"t She Great" but as roles go, it"s thankless. Here"s the highest-priced Broadway star of his generation, và what"s he doing in this little role, anyway?
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
