Rumor Has It

What is up with these "romantic comedies" that aren't really all that funny? Once again I was disappointed with what I had anticipated would be a hilarious movie. This is not to say that Rumor Has It wasn't funny at all or devoid of merit, but the scenes that did make me laugh were somewhat few and far between. I would say that it's definitely more of a "cute" movie.

The idea for the film is quite interesting, actually, as it tells us what happened to the family upon whom The Graduate was based. Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston) is traveling back home to Pasedena California with her fiance, Jeff (Mark Ruffalo), for her sister's wedding. Family gatherings of any kind make Sarah extremely nervous and uptight, as she has never been able to fit in with the rest of her relatives and therefore feels extremely out of place. When Sarah confides to her grandmother, Katharine (Shirley MacLaine), that she is feeling unsure about her engagement to perfect-guy Jeff, Katharine lets it slip that Sarah's mother had felt so anxious about her marriage to Sarah's father, that she had actually skipped out of town to Mexico one week before the wedding. After a little more investigating, Sarah discovers that her mother and her grandmother actually slept with the same guy, and that their affair was the inspiration for the book and movie The Graduate. What's more, Jeff helpfully points out that Sarah was born less than 9 months after her parents marriage, meaning that her father might in actuality be Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner)--the graduate himself.

So, is Beau Burroughs her biological father? I fucking hope not, because we already know from the previews that Sarah follows in her grandmother's and mother's footsteps by sleeping with the guy too, and I was simply not prepared to deal with the resulting yuck factor. Needless to say, however, Sarah confronts Beau about his history with the women in her family, and is forced to confront her own future with Jeff in the process by participating in this bizarre rite of passage

There were definitely some funny moments in this movie, though not enough to constitute a full-blown comedy. While it never gets too serious (like The Family Stone), it doesn't necessarily move all that quickly either, and I found myself somewhat restless as the movie's end grew nearer. Jennifer Aniston, despite sleeping with another man while engaged to Jeff, miraculously manages to remain as lovable as ever, with a natural charisma that pervades everything she does. She has some funny lines here and there, as does Mark Ruffalo, but Shirley MacLaine has the best character in the movie by far. Her "don't screw with me" attitude was consistently entertaining, and despite an extremely contrived screaming scene between way too many people, I thought all of her scenes were good.

I would probably wait for the DVD on this one--I definitely don't think it was a bad movie, but you won't be missing anything by waiting a few more months to see it. Then again, you just gotta love movies where the actors play characters who are the inspiration for the characters played by different actors in an earlier film.