Copyright © 2003 by Tony Medley

  In Pillow Talk, Doris Day and Rock Hudson got together because they shared a party line.  This flimsy premise got even worse as playboy Hudson tried to fool Day by pretending to be a hick from Texas.  The result was a funny, classic romantic comedy.  So flimsy premise has precedence for producing an entertaining film.

 In How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days Andie (Kate Hudson) is assigned to write an article entitled, well, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and write it from actual experience of finding a guy, getting him to fall in love with her, and then driving him away, all in 10 days.  So she goes to a singles bar to find the poor guy.  Enter advertising executive Ben (Matthew McConnaughey) who wants a big account and bets his rivals (two women) that he can get a girl to fall in love with him in 10 days.  Since this occurs at the same singles bar where Andie’s looking for her mark, Andie and Ben meet and proceed to try to accomplish their goals by using one another.

 Sure, that’s as flimsy as the premise of Pillow Talk, and it certainly isn’t a premise that will bring people flocking to the theaters, and it almost didn’t bring me.  But, forced to choose between sitting through three hours of mayhem in Gangs of New York, and this, I opted for this.  The result?  At one hour 50 minutes, it’s at least 20 minutes too long.  But McConnaughey gives a good performance. And although I didn’t find Hudson to be very persuasive, she is infuriatingly infuriating in trying to get Ben to dump her (although, to be frank, she didn’t seem any more self-centerdly irrational than any other single woman I’ve known).  Very few normal guys would put up with her or even with someone cuter and sexier than Andie, but Ben’s got a bet to win, so he endures a lot.  I got a little antsy sitting through it, but, in the end, found it enjoyable.  Had it come in at 90 minutes it would have been much better.

 February 16, 2003

 The End

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