Quirky romantic pairings are always a risky gamble in Hollywood, but out of those rare occasions when the odd-couple friction sets off the kind of sparks generated by Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen, movie legends are born. When the chemistry fizzles, as in the teaming of Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly, the only thing produced is an irritating heat rash. Watching these two go at it is almost as uncomfortable as observing the 60-something Woody Allen nuzzling a beauty less than half his age.
Theoretically the notion of Stiller as a phobia-ridden risk assessor for an insurance company loosened up by Aniston as a carefree daredevil isn't wholly implausible. But this flat romantic comedy, written and directed by John Hamburg (one of the writers of Meet the Parents and Zoolander) fails to provide any reason a spunky free-spirited girl-next-door like Aniston's character, Polly Prince, would give Reuben Feffer, Stiller's uptight nerd, a second glance. True, Reuben is a nice Jewish boy, but as we all know, nice has nothing to do with hot.
Reuben is so obsessed with statistics that he counts the seconds to himself as he makes love and makes personal choices based on a device that analyzes data and spews out percentages.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES
Stiller, with his bony, oversize head protruding from a torso that seems perpetually knotted in a tense bodybuilder's pose, often gives the impression of a turtle. Aniston, in contrast, exudes the confident nonchalance of an attractive young everywoman in the pink of health.
Along Came Polly doesn't lack for names in its supporting cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman, in his slobby mode, is Reuben's best friend, Sandy Lyle, a failed actor clinging to his one fading moment of semi-fame who is reduced to playing Judas in a community theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar! Alec Baldwin, shamelessly hamming it up as Reuben's go-getting boss, is a New York Jewish caricature.
The bottom drops out of Reuben's world early in the movie when, on the first day of his Caribbean honeymoon, his new wife, Lisa (Debra Messing), deserts him for Claude (Hank Azaria), a well-muscled but pretentious French scuba-diving instructor. Reuben flees back to New York in the throes of despair and begins dating Polly, a former high school classmate who works as a part-time caterer and keeps a pet ferret.
Their courtship begins on a rocky note when Polly suggests they go to a Moroccan restaurant and Reuben's fragile digestive system goes haywire. Along Came Polly is so desperate for laughs that it clings to the running joke of Reuben's irritable bowel syndrome and its associated sound effects. The spectacle of two mature stars forced to grovel in the bathroom for cheap laughs is pathetic.
Each time the movie's verbal humor falls flat, Along Came Polly reminds you how difficult it is to write comic banter that is genuinely funny. The movie does a little better when the humor is physical.
To win Polly's respect, Reuben secretly takes salsa dancing lessons. The scene in which he unveils his newly acquired skill, hurling himself around like a spastic John Travolta, is the movie's funniest. Other scenes in which he tries to charm an accident-prone Australian daredevil and wealthy chief executive (Bryan Brown) into buying life insurance also kick up a little zany energy.
But Along Came Polly can't transcend its central miscasting. It will take a better film than this one to make Aniston a full-blown star.
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