“The Proposal” (Watching The Latest Sandra Bullock Rom Com Post Wisdom Teeth Extraction)
So on a weekend when you’ve had teeth yanked out from inside your face and you’re slightly loopy and you’ve exhausted your Netflix movies and you want to watch another movie while gorging ice cream, what do you do? Find a Sandra Bullock movie showing on Encore, that’s what! I mean, isn’t that why The Proposal (2009) was made? To watch while you gorge on ice cream?
The situation: Sandra Bullock is Margaret Tate, a high powered New York book editor who we first glimpse dressed all in black, her black hair tied back in an airtight ponytail and being handed her drink of choice, an unsweetened soy latte which is totally my favorite piece of shorthand characterization in the whole film. The person handing her the unsweetened soy latte is her harried assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds) who hasn’t had a day off in three years and was supposed to have the weekend off to fly home for his grandma’s birthday only to have Margaret underscore her bitchiness by nixing that little plan. Man, Andrew hates Margaret.
The twist: it turns out Margaret is Canadian and on account of one of those cinematic paperwork snafus is set to be deported. Of course, at that moment Andrew enters to advise Margaret she had a phone call but he had explained she was otherwise “engaged” and the figurative light bulb goes on over Margaret’s head and she explains she and Andrew are… engaged.
The problem: an INS official suspects this whole marriage is a green card sham and that if he discovers they are committing fraud they will be convicted of a felony and sentenced to five years in prison.
Even though Sandra Bullock can’t quite pull off proper bitchy like some of her contemporaries I certainly did buy that this character would descend to these depths to keep out of Canada to maintain her job. At first it seemed a bit suspicious that Andrew would also descend to these depths and risk five years in prison, even after blackmailing Margaret in keeping up the ruse so long as she agrees to make him an editor, but that was until they went back home to Alaska.
Did I not mention that? Andrew is from Alaska and takes his “fiancé” home to meet the folks – his pleasant mom (the always pleasant Mary Steenburgen), his “wacky” grandmother (the always wacky Betty White) and his disapproving father (Craig T. Nelson). Upon meeting the father who is vastly wealthy and wants his son to take over the family business I decided to buy that, yes, Andrew would risk five years in prison just to piss off dad. There certainly are sons in the world who would do such things.
So……two people who can’t stand each other come to Alaska posing as future husband and wife. What do we expect? Well, we expect them to slowly realize that they really do love one another and really do want to get married and, sure enough, the movie heads smack dab in that general direction. Enter The Proposal’s secret weapon:
Malin Akerman.
The one all the way to the right! Barely in the frame! Choose her, Andrew! CHOOSE HER!
Let me explain. I watched The Romantics (2010) a couple months ago and fell hard for the bewitching Ms. Akerman, officially naming her heir to Sienna Miller’s throne as my official Cinematic Crush. Here Akerman plays Gertrude, the hometown girl who Andrew dated until he left to make it in the Big City. And Akerman, of course, can’t be allowed to look quite as pretty as the leading lady and so the filmmakers never let her look as beautiful as she really is and she can’t really appear in all that many scenes because this is Hollywood and Hollywood can’t allow more than 17 seconds to pass without showing its primary star and she can’t be too wacky in the scenes she is in because Betty White was hired to fulfill the wacky quotient and so she’s basically just there as your typical screenwriting pawn but, nevertheless, it was still Malin Akerman and so this allowed me something crucial – a vested rooting interest. Go, Malin! Down with Sandra!
And eventually we arrive at the inevitable wedding ceremony where Margaret finally comes clean to the whole Paxton clan about the charade and runs away and the Paxton clan is devastated and Gertrude tracks down Andrew and I thought, “Here it is! This is the moment! Andrew realizes he’s loved Gertrude all along and belongs in Alaska, just like Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama, (not that I’ve seen that)!” Except Gertrude tells Andrew to go after Margaret instead. And he does. Sandra = Winner. Malin = Loser. Which is why this reviewer gives The Proposal a gigantic, emphatic…
12 Comments
If you get the chance, you should check out Akerman in Season 2 of “Childrens Hospital.” She has some serious comedic chops, yet sadly most people still only know her from the sub-par “Watchmen.” She was even good in “The Heartbreak Kid,” though the movie around her was not.
She was in The Heartbreak Kid? I need to get myself up to date with her oeuvre.
Oddly I kind of enjoyed this. Some of it is atrocious (the wedding, the bachelorette party) but Bullock and Reynolds had pretty solid chemistry, at least comedy-wise.
I don’t know that it was really worth of an “F” (though it was, of course, according to my own ridiculous criteria). It wasn’t great but I’ve seen worse romantic comedies. Much, much worse.
It had some moments that were OK though the stuff with Betty White was cool. For the rest of “The Proposal”, I didn’t care for it and plus, I’m really souring on Sandra Bullock. I can’t really buy her into the roles. I was watching some of “All About Steve” and I winced throughout that film and it felt like torture. And then there’s “The Blind Side” which is a film I don’t like at all. It’s so saccharine and cheesy. It is a typical inspirational drama with all sorts of bullshit and Bullock just going overboard with the performance that screams Oscar.
I think Malin Akerman is OK. She was alright in “Watchmen” but I loathed “The Heartbreak Kid”. There was nothing about that film that was funny and what really disappointed me was that there was no cameo from the real Heartbreak Kid himself, HBK, the showstopper, the Icon, Mr. Wrestlemania, Shawn Michaels.
To understand my Akerman crush you really have to see The Romantics. And if you know me and know how my mind works and see her in that, it will make perfect sense. She seems like she might have some skills, I just hope she gets more real roles.
Shoot I’d wished you have gone for All About Steve instead.
That’s two All About Steve references I’ve seen today. Now I kind of want to watch it.
It’s horrendous. Don’t let Joel persuade you otherwise!
Please do you are in for a field trip. =)
Hope your tooth is feeling better soon, Nick. I don’t think I’ll give it an F but I’m not crazy about it like a lot of people are, I’d probably give it a C-. I didn’t see the chemistry between the leads, to be honest. I mean, they’re both adorable, I just can’t picture them as a real couple.
This was an abysmal film. I like both the leads a lot, but they were not very good in this movie and the attempts at humor were always miscalculated, always unfunny and almost always went for the crassest gags.
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