Must Love Dogs 2005
There really wasn’t any reason to make this movie. The setup, a woman recently divorced who starts dating again via dating services, has been done so many times it’s even old on sitcoms. There are elements that are incredibly tired and trite like the mandatory gay friend that all single women in the movies have around to remind them of what good men are really like. In order to follow the formula of boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, the two main characters have to split up without any second effort over something they both admit is not important and is a misunderstanding anyway. One phone call patches things up immediately but instead we’re off on some weird tangent where Diane Lane decides to trawl the bottom of the dating ocean.
But this movie is still pretty good. Diane Lane and John Cusack bring a great deal of charm and intelligence to the otherwise banal plot. The writing is occasionally very good (though in places it misses the mark) and the cast of supporting characters is solid, even the gay friend. There are also some good laughs that keep everything lite and enjoyable. In effect, this is a good movie trying to look like a terrible one, but it is still worth seeing.
I’ll give this a B.