Heartbreak Kid

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

The movie is a remake of Elaine May's 1972 comedy, written by Neil Simon.

Eddie Cantrow (Ben Stiller) is a man who cannot commit. Now 40, he is on a brink of loneliness he could not imagine: his friends are married, his dad (Jerry Stiller) is upset at his lack of sexual endeavors, and at social functions even the kids suspect he is a homosexual.

Walking he ponders this overall pairing off, when he accidentally runs into a gorgeous young woman whose purse was stolen. Meets and loses her, but Lila (Malin Akerman) finds him again.

After few weeks of courtship Lila informs him that she is being send to Rotterdam by the company she work for. Eddie, with less than gentle push by daddy, offers marriage. They marry and it is: "like a switch was thrown". Everything about her irritates him. Suddenly he learns shocking and embarrassing things about her, and on top of it he meets the woman of his dreams, Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), on his honeymoon in Mexico.

While his new wife is recovering from very bad sunburn, Eddie is romancing his new interest who believes that his wife was brutally murdered. Naturally, when it comes out that things are rather different, both women leave him.

It takes Eddie 18 months to rally but then he takes off for Mississippi to find Miranda and declare himself

He left it a bit too late.

If it sounds like something you have already seen, it also looks like something already seen. I do not mean the original.

The original film had a Jewish man with social ambition marry an impossible wife and then meet a desirable WASP beauty on his honeymoon. Charles Grodin was a shallow jerk.

In this version character development strains anyone's capacity to believe, even for slapstick. Lila becomes so impossible that we all grit our teeth, which is a tribute to Ms. Akerman's acting, but it does not help the story. Ms. Monaghan' Miranda is so forgiving that it sets my teeth on edge. Ben Stiller is rather lazily the same as always.

Starting with the end of the original, we do not get the same premise or promise. Lila is for some 6 weeks smart, sexy, funny, chaste and employed. Right after she marries, she becomes sluttish, loud, manner less, sexual predator. How did this happen? Is marriage really that bad for women? Or is it the author's perception of women as in: sense of humor is a male gene and crushing pussy is a good sport?
Staging grossly overweight Lila's Mom as a picture of her possible future, and a damper on Eddie's affections, would always be tricky, but considering that Eddie's father is all smut talk, orange toupee and sex with grossly over-endowed bimbos, Lila's genetic equipment compares almost positively. If daddy is Eddie's future, Lila should run.
Indeed, when Eddies' personality is revealed at the end of the film, anyone should run. Yet because of the way Lila is presented, Eddies is fully justified in ditching her while his character, he is still lying, shallow jerk, is beautified by Lila's deficiencies. Miranda' family is loud and often rude, but Miranda is an ideal woman: all what a dude is, in model's body. Now that is different from May's version.

Ben's quest is unclear: he seems to want to fit with his pals rather than to commit.

Mexico is beautiful but the slapsticks are trite, worn out, pilled up endlessly, and often crude.

Directed by Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly. Screenplay, Scot Armstrong, Leslie Dixon, Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly, Kevin Barnett, based on the screenplay by Neil Simon, inspired by a story by Bruce Jay Friedman.