FauxNixon

Along Came Polly is the most recent film in Hollywood’s long tradition of cookie-cutter plots.  Reuben Feffer, portrayed by Ben Stiller in a rather mediocre performance, lives a comfortable, if cautious life where his professional efforts are so focused on the prevention of any type of risky behavior that he lives a very quiet and very carefully planned life.  When his new wife Lisa (Debra Messing) cheats on him during the first day of their honeymoon, however, Reuben ends up meeting Polly (Jennifer Aniston), a free-spirited woman living without any commitments, forethought, or planning.  Polly takes Reuben’s controlled life apart and in doing so frees him and his best friend Sandy Lyle, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and makes them both better and happier people; with such a plot, it shouldn’t be difficult to guess the rest of the plot.

Despite the overall lack of quality with this picture, there are definitely a few positive aspects which make the film something less than a total disaster.  The performance of Alec Baldwin in his role as Rueben’s boss is quite entertaining and done with an exceptionally skilled comedic touch not typical of Baldwin in his previous roles.  There is a charming running gag about a blind ferret kept by Aniston’s character, which is also good for a couple of chuckles, and Hank Azaria is quite enjoyable in his role as Claude, the scuba instructor.  The character of a now-grown child star is played quite well by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and it is certainly pleasant to see Hoffman moving up in the world of movies, having gone from many small supporting roles into much larger supporting roles.  It remains to be seen when he will finally make the crossover into a leading role in a film.

While both Aniston and Stiller leave much to be desired in their performances, one is forced to wonder whether this is due to the quality of writing with which they were working, or in some way due to their own shortcomings as actors.  Writer and director John Hamburg seems unlikely to have left either actor with much creative freedom, so it’s not a certainty what is to blame.  Even for a stereotypical romantic comedy this movie is nothing but a collection of stale ideas artificially formed by Hamburg into a steaming pile of failure, complete with a very unnecessary shot of Hank Azaria’s ass.  Although Along Came Polly is not a movie of great quality or innovation, if you have found enjoyment in other movies with similar storylines like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or America’s Sweethearts, this movie will probably prove to be at least mildly enjoyable.