The Proposal
Posted by Gary Sundt on June 28, 2009
Ryan Reynolds bends down to talk to a kneeling Sandra Bullock in The Proposal.
As Posted on Jackcentral.com on June 28, 2009
by Gary Sundt
I saw The Proposal because a) it was #1 in the box office last weekend, and b) my girlfriend wanted to see it. Admittedly, while I am not one of those guys who gets into “chick flicks,” I have been known to like more than a few girlie movies in my day. This means that I know the girl movie formula and what to expect. The couple will end up together, and there will be all sorts of moments where the audience goes “awwww…” It’s like watching a movie, any movie, where a kid has cancer. Girls like those movies too.
While aw-moments are abounding in The Proposal, they are not all the film has to offer. Truthfully, the movie has one of the more realistic approaches to the unlikely-couple-falls-in-love scenario that I’ve seen. Canadian immigrant Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) is the editor-in-chief for a prominent New York book publisher who, after an unfortunate bit of law breaking, is being deported back to her home country. She finds a rather clever solution to her predicament in her assistant, Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds), who she forces to marry her to avoid ejection from the United States. When the government questions their rather questionable engagement, the odd couple takes a weekend excursion to Sitka, Alaska to visit Andrew’s family and the sell their unholy union.
Margaret is a rather hateful individual in her life in New York, but has to play nice with Andrew and his family for the weekend. But! (insert shock and awe here), she discovers a few things about Andrew on their trip, including his family being filthy rich industrialists (you know, the kind of family whose last name appears just about everywhere) and that he is actually a pretty decent guy. Will the family’s wacky antics win over the Office Witch? Probably. Will she feel guilty by the third act? Almost definitely. But when the supporting cast is made up of Betty White as the family’s wacky 89-year-old matriarch and The Office’s Oscar Nuñez as the town’s only male stripper, et al., the formula’s predictability doesn’t bother so much.
The Proposal isn’t without a certain adherence to formula, which is as hurtful to the end result as it is charming. These two vastly different individuals must end up together, because all the aw-moments in the world won’t woo the intended audience if it all doesn’t end disgustingly and unbelievably happy. And while the road to implausible bliss comes with many predictable happenings (a fish out of water experience here, a Bullock in water and unable to swim incident there), they will somehow, some way, end up happily ever after.
Bullock does a rather fine job in The Proposal, which is surprising because I usually hate most of her more recent film fare. But the character is ideal for her strengths as a performer, and she and Reynolds play off one another rather nicely. The script by first-time writer Pete Chiarelli doesn’t give the cast too much to work with, but these people are funny, and know how to read it to maximize it’s potential. The audience smiles and laughs, the credits role, and everybody leaves the theater satisfied. I found myself in the satisfied crowd for once, and so I figure the people at work here had to be doing something right.
Star Rating: 3.5 stars
