Neeli-BlogsCrappy Rental of the Week - No Reservations
May 28th 2009 13:03
No Reservations is an unsuccessful Romantic Comedy starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Abigail Breslin and Aaron Eckhart. The story focuses on Kate (played by Zeta-Jones) an uptight and anti-social gourmet chef who becomes a guardian to her niece Zoe (Breslin) after her sister dies in a car-crash. On top of her struggles to be an adequate parental figure, her work-life changes dramatically when a Sous Chef named Nick (Eckhart) is hired, who is just as loose and bubbly as she is wound-up and cold. Can this charismatic Sous Chef melt Kate’s heart? You bet your poor screenplays he can.
This might be a movie where you’d think it’s alright the first time, but then when you watch it again you realize how terrible it is. The script is awful, the directing is sloppy and there are way too many musical sequences attempting to pad out the storyline. There are parts where you can tell the director told them to ad lib their dialogue while they play some random song over it. It's like the directer thinks no one minds if the characters are saying things like "Yeah sure uh huh right oh really yep uh huh" during crucial character-developing moments as long as there's pleasant music playing over it. Some of the montage sequences are painful, particularly the ones involving the three main characters riding three-person bikes and playing in photo-booths.
Catherine Zeta-Jones does a good job as Kate, and Aaron Eckhart is also well-cast as the male lead. The problem is that characters like Aaron Eckhart's Nick don't actually exist in real life. So instead of watching the movie thinking “Aaw, he’s so dreamy..” we’re thinking “Pfft, yeah right!”. If guys like Nick existed, they wouldn't be single, and they'd never fall for uptight bitches like Kate. He's basically the Gary-Stu creation of a lonely writer. He's good in the kitchen, he's funny, he's insanely good looking, he likes romantic music, he's loyal, and he's good with kids.
And here's another thing that really annoys me about this film - Kate is always leaving her niece alone with random guys. Why would a character who has massive trust issues let their date pick up their niece, take them to bed alone and tuck them in? Why would a character who has massive trust issues tell their single mid-thirties neighbour to come inside their house several times a night to check on their niece and make sure she's still tucked in? Who wouldn't freak the hell out when they open the door to their own house and find this guy in there? Anyone who has ever watched an episode of Oprah would know that's where the warning bells start going off. Sure it's an extremely unfair stereotype. Not all guys over the age of thirty who play with children that aren't their own are paedofiles. Some people are just NICE. But seriously, leaving your kids alone with strangers in general is a really bad idea. Bad writers! Shame on you.
In a nutshell, this movie is not worst movie I’ve ever seen, but I'm not recommending it to anyone any time soon. The cast try their best to make it a worthwhile movie, but in the end it never comes up to scratch. It's not the worst, but it’s still pretty terrible.
Two stars.
This is That Aussie Girl, signing off.
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Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Thanks for confirming what I suspected from seeing the trailers for this film at the time. I've never been much of a Zeta-Jones fan anyway, she just seems so phony and unbelievable playing an ordinary person. She's probably a victim of her own beauty really.
You'd be much better off checking out the excellent German film, Mostly Martha, that this is based on.
I agree Scott Hicks can be annoying in his use of source music too, the sickly nostalgic period pop songs drove me to distraction in Hearts in Atlantis!