The Proposal (2009)

VERDICT:
5/10 Workplace Harrassment Claims

Predictable as all hell, but it wasn’t pure torture like I was expecting.

The Proposal is about an editor’s assistant at a big time publishing house who gets blackmailed by his bitchy boss into pretending that they’re engaged so that she doesn’t get shipped back to Canada since she forgot to fill out a Do Not Deport form on her taxes or something. So in an effort to make their scheme look legit, they go spend a weekend with the guy’s family in Alaska (Oh, dear! Anything but Alaska!) for his granny’s 80th birthday and try to make this awkward situation as painless as possible so they can just get married, get divorced and get it over with.

Call me crazy, but sounds like there’s more going on between these two than meets the eye. Love, perhaps?

No shit.

Now, I’m not one for throwing spoilers into my reviews, but who am I kidding, a mere glance at this poster in passing pretty much gives away the whole damn movie. Opposites attract, right? What else is new. But the strange thing is that this time around it didn’t really bother me all that much. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into the second I sat down to watch this with my good buddy Fred, but I was totally surprised at how long this thing stayed at a 6 out of 10 before finally having to take it down a notch during the last half-hour or so.

And a lot of that is due to our cooky little couple of Ryan and Sandra.

Man, I still don’t really know what to think about Ryan Reynolds. He seems to have a whole lot of potential, he’s got a good sense of humor and I think he’s gonna be the bomb as Deadpool (still skeptical about Green Lantern though), but the guy keeps on taking the same Hollywood romcom roles that are giving him zero room to grow. Nonetheless, he’s fun to watch here, still has a good sense of humor and he has good chemistry with Sandra. Not too shabby for one more romcom.

The only issue I’ve got with Sandra is that she’s good when she’s doing the whole Miranda Priestly/Anna Wintour shtick, but then she starts to loosen up and starts being nice to people, and that just doesn’t work. But other than that, she’s good and I’ve really warmed up to the gal since her awesome Razzies acceptance speech and recent discovery that she’s actually quite down-to-Earth.

So way to go, Sandra! That husband of your is a douche!

But like I said, this was a 6 for a while and if it weren’t for a scene where Sandra starts booty dancing to “Get Low” by Lil John while yelling “Sweat drips down my balls!” in the middle of the woods with Betty White in her Dances with Wolves gear looking on, it probably would have stayed that way. That, my friends, was a God-awful scene. But Betty White is pretty entertaining.

And even though I knew this was gonna be predictable going in, it’s always kind of a bummer to realize at the end that it actually is that predictable. Not quite sure why I wasn’t all too phased by it until that point, but, yeah, that was disappointing. Could have used a random car crash or a T-rex or something to spice things up a bit.

The Proposal‘s cute and enoyable, but it is what it is. Had to remind myself that I actually saw this after a week had gone by, so that’s no good, although it does have some funny lines here and there, it could have been worse and, hey, Coach is in it.

Coach. Good show.