This is the other big smash hit that Sandra Bullock had last year (the other being The Blind Side, reviewed earlier). Whereas BLIND SIDE was an interesting take on a sports film, side-stepping many of the cliches to use the story of a football player to tell a story about family, instead of a story about sports, THE PROPOSAL is a very by-the-numbers, follow every rule and cliche, romantic comedy. Which makes it even more surprising that it's actually pretty good.
So what are some romantic comedy cliches? First there is the creative lie. This lie comes about because the protagonist wants something and so creates a lie to get it. Usually this lie will make it so that the protagonist and the love interest will be stuck together. Also, while trying to keep up this lie, the two people will have wacky adventures. At first they will hate each other, but through these wacky adventures they will come to know and even love each other. There, of course, will be a third person in the mix -- a love interest of the love interest -- to give some romantic competition. Then just when it seems the protagonist is going to get what they wanted, the creative lie is exposed (gasp!). Trust is broken. Everything is in shambles. But then, because their love is now true, they find a way to reconcile and the movie ends with the two of them together, usually getting everything they wanted.
Now let's see if we can name the beats in this movie, THE PROPOSAL:
The movie is about Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) who is a major ball busting, cold hearted, witch of a boss at a publishing company and Andrew Paxon (Ryan Renolds), who is her beleagured assistant. Then Margaret finds out she is going to be deported and will lose her job, so she lies and says she and Andrew are engaged. Andrew goes along with it since as an assistant, his future is tied to hers and because she promises to publish a book her found and make him an editor. Of course, the immigration oficial is suspicious and will have to interview them to make sure they are a real couple. They have the weekend to learn everything about each other or she will be deported and he will go to jail. This weekend is Andrew's grandmother's 90th birthday so off they go to Alaska to meet the wacky family and have lots of funny adventures while they fall in love. Which they do. Then his parents suggest they get married that weekend in Alaska and of course the immigration official is coming to check on them and everyone is gathered at the wedding and...
Okay, I don't want to spoil it, but yeah, it's based on a creative lie so what do you think happens. Like I said, it is a very by the numbers rom-com. Still, this movie does a lot of things right. First and foremost is it does a good job with the comedy. In many ways this movie plays closer to WEDDING CRASHERS than any recent film starring Jennifer Aniston or Sarah Jessica Parker). The other is they have some nice reversals to play against cliche. The first is Bullock playing an abrasive boss instead of the dorky girl people probably expect her to play in comedies. The second is that when they fly off to Alaska to meet his family, instead of being a bunch of hicks they are actually a well off family. And they seem pretty normal. This isn't something where they make everyone wacky just to throw in wackiness, which can be good in small doses but is almost always overdone. (Here the main wackiness is Oscar Nunez (Oscar from The Office) who plays Romone, a man with many jobs including male stripper, which is all the kooky any movie needs.) It is nice that the characters seem to have a certain intelligence that most characters in rom-coms lack and that there isn't the typical "evil" character who sabotages everything. Even the competing love interest isn't really played up. Of course, they don't miss all the cliches and it's in the third act (the final 20 minutes) that things start to feel routine, very been-there-seen-that.
The problem that most romantic comedies have is that they don't really have anything to say about relationships (other than don't tell this huge lie because you are screwed when you get caught). So when you get to that final twenty minutes, the time when the characters really need to face whatever it is they need to deal with...there just isn't anything there. Then you get a happy ending, which feels more like a contrivance of plot than a real happy ending and it's over. I think THE PROPOSAL does try to get at something -- certainly they try to make it that Margaret is affected by meeting Andrew's family and seeing how much they love him and tying it to the fact that she has been alone most of her life...but it's a moment that isn't really earned. Unlike BLIND SIDE which is all about family, this movie didn't have that same feel, so when that final reconciliation moment comes...it just fell a little flat for me.
Still, overall a very good movie.
RECOMMEND (but not as much as BLIND SIDE)
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