FAILURE TO LAUNCH

Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Bates, Terry Bradshaw, Bradley Cooper, Zooey Deschanel, Justin Bartha

Cinema 5, SM Megamall

"To leave the nest, some men need just a little push"

The premise that a thirty something guy with a job and normal social skills but still lives with his parents is I take it a rather big deal in the US of A. But the fact that he has some serious commitment issues is what the director focused on as his reason for still living in nestled comfort with his folks. To make him realize he needs to shoo away, they hire a professional I-don't-know-what to pretend to fall in love with him. Her theory is that once a guy has some romance in his life, he will feel responsible enough to live on his own. Paula is played by an out of her elements Sarah Jessica Parker. By the way, I never developed an attachment for her despite her 'resounding' success in that HBO series, Sex and the City. Here, her acting was too contrite. It seemed as if Sarah Jessica Parker was trying hard to convince herself that there are really women out there who call playing pretend girlfriend to losers, a worthy profession.
Eventually, the whole charade is discovered by both parties and it evolves into a will-they-get-back-together-because-they-really-fell-in-love-with-each-other scenario. But at that point, I didn't really care if they ended up in each others arms because I couldn't feel the chemistry at all. Matthew McConaughey had much more rapport with Kate Hudson than he had with Sarah Jessica Parker in this movie.
I had more fun watching the subplot which involves her room mate, Kit trying to repulse one of his friends, Ace from his romantic overtures towards her. Zooey Deschanel was funny with her witty sarcasm. Bradley Cooper with his deep set eyes is always a pleasure to watch.
I've always been apathetic towards Matthew McConaughey. Here in this movie, he comes off as the typical athletic good guy with likeable friends but has some deep pain in his past relationship thus he cannot fully commit to women issue dangling in his pretty face.
I guess for me it just wasn't a big deal if he still lived with his parents but that is just the Asian in me talking. I know most guys in this part of the world still live with their parents, specifically for economic reasons. Or maybe they have commitment issues as well? I don't know. But this is not the proper forum to address the surmounting issues of guys, in general. So I won't go there.
Overall, the film wasn't as good as "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days" but not as bad as "Sahara" either. That was Matthew McConaughey's botched up idea of an Arabian Adventure ala Indiana Jones complete with pretty girlfriend (Penelope Cruz) in tow.
So this was just a rather blah whatever kinda film which I promptly charged to my I-just-wanted-to-kill-some-time experience.