Went to see this film today at the Leeds/Bradford Odeon with my friend Aj and did not know what to expect at all.
IMDB says: An Oscar-winning writer in a slump leaves Hollywood to teach screenwriting at a college on the East Coast, where he falls for a single mom taking classes there.
In this Marc Lawrence (Miss Congeniality, Music and Lyrics) written and directed film, Hugh Grant (Love Actually, About A Boy) plays Keith Michaels, the down-on-his luck screenwriter who moves to Binghamton to teach when his agent can no longer get him writing work.
He does not make a great first impression, starting an affair with one of his students Karen (played by a spot-on Bella Heathcote, Dark Shadows, In Time) before he even starts teaching and offending the 'big cheese' on the faculty Mary (the ever brilliant at acerbic roles Allison Janney, Juno, The West Wing) at his first teaching-related social event, following this up with a lackadaisical attitude to his job. But he does make friends with his fellow teacher and neighbour Jim (Chris Elliott, Groundhog Day, There's Something About Mary) and gets on well with his boss, the appropriately named Dr Lerner (J. K. Simmons, Juno, Spiderman), plus he got to hand pick his class with mainly hot female students that are easy on the eye, even if one mature student Holly, played by the joyous Marisa Tomei (The Lincoln Lawyer, What Women Want) manages to worm her way in to the class too.
Grant is excellent as a down-trodden ex-Hollywood player and this is where the script most resonates in reality and as Lawrence wrote Miss Congeniality, a big hit from a number of years ago, it does leave the viewer wondering how autobiographical the one-hit-wonder script is. It is well written and directed and Grant is perfect for the lecherous, sexist and cynical divorced man who likes a drink rather too much and it is a lovely surprise when, rather than getting away with this attitude, he is made an example of because of it.
There are no huge surprises in this somewhat predictable rom-com, but it is a pleasant watch nonetheless.
Trivia: This is the fourth film that teams Lawrence and Grant as director and lead actor and the scene in which Grant watches the clip on the internet, it is him accepting the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical for 'Four Weddings and A Funeral.'
A pleasant, if predictable, rom-com. 6/10
#TheRewrite #HughGrant #MarisaTomei #Odeon
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