Awake and The Heartbreak Kid

Yesterday, John and I took advantage of a rainy day by staying inside and watching DVDs (normally, we are very out-on-the-town people; we hardly ever stay in our apartment). The lineup was as follows:

Awake. This late-2007 release stars Hayden Christiansen as a young multi-millionaire (Clay) with a heart problem, Jessica Alba (Sam) as his too-good-to-be-true fiancee, and Terrence Howard (Jack) as the heart surgeon who saved his life and then became his best friend. After hemming and hawing over telling his overly protective mother about his true love, our young millionaire finally comes clean about his engagement, and despite mom's intense (and sort of illogical) disapproval, the couple gets married in a midnight service attended only by the priest and Dr. Jack.

Later that night, Clay receives a call from the doctor informing him that, quite miraculously, a heart has become available for transplant. Things just couldn't be better!

Except for the fact that when Clay is given his anesthesia, he never actually falls asleep. He is completely paralyzed and yet fully conscious for his entire heart transplant. While his best friend and accomplices are performing the surgery, Clay discovers that his best friend is not a friend at all, and his beloved new wife has a really big secret. From here, we are thrown into what I considered a really tight and suspenseful thriller, complete with a beautiful and heartbreaking denouement.

My only real criticism of the movie is the unnecessary prominence of its premise. We are kind of beaten over the head with the hook that this guy's gonna be awake during surgery: the text at the beginning of the movie informs us that so-and-so many people a year experience anesthetic awareness. The tagline reads something like, "they planned the perfect crime; they never thought he'd be the one person to be conscious." (It's better than that-- I shouldn't count on a career in tagline-writing.) In reality, the fact that Clay remains awake is absolutely unnecessary to the thrilling drama that ensues. He does not save the day. I'm not saying if anyone does, but it ain't his paralyzed self.

I understand that a catchy catch is what gets tickets sold, so I am willing to forgive the superfluity of Clay's awakeness. It adds a little more drama to an already dramatic plot, and I suppose the gross factor upped the entertainment value for me a bit. I do highly recommend this flick. If you're a fan of the incomparable Lena Olin (who plays Clay's gorgeous mom), I recommend it even more. Bonus points to director Joby Harold for casting Fisher Stevens! He needs work.

Since the rain never let up yesterday, my better half and I forewent all of our usual outdoor hobbies (painting the town red and skeet-surfing) and popped in another flick.

The Heartbreak Kid. The latest effort from the inconsistently hilarious Farelly brothers stars Ben Stiller (who else?) as Eddie, a forty-year-old San Fransiscan bachelor who falls in love at first sight with Lila (Malin Akerman, whom you know as Christopher Meloni's wife in Harold and Kumar). Lila, who is unbelievably hot for an environmental researcher, is told that she must move to Rotterdam for work. The couple is heartbroken that they must split up after 6 romantic weeks of dating. The only solution is that they get married, since Lila's job won't force married couples to move abroad. Despite Eddie's cold feet, the couple tie the knot and head to Cabo for their honeymoon.

And on the road-trip down to Mexico, Eddie realizes that he's made a huge mistake: his new bride is a nightmare! Oh my god! She does horribly annoying things like... sings along with the radio (gasp!) and accidentally sometimes snorts stuff out of her nose because of a deviated septum and (oh dear!) likes to have really kinky sex! Poor Eddie. He had no idea that he was marrying a PRETTY FUN GIRL.

Needless to say, I spent the first half of the movie totally defending Lila and thinking Eddie was a nerdy chimp. To be fair, it turns out that Lila is a mixed bag of nuts: her "environmental research" job is volunteer work; her deviated septum is a result of years of cocaine abuse; and she's headstrong about not using a good SPF while sunbathing (unforgivable, according to this ghostly white reviewer). When she falls victim to a violent sunburn on the first day of the honeymoon, she is relegated to the room, leaving Eddie to his own devices at the resort.

And here the timeless formula of the romantic comedy begins: Eddie meets and quickly falls in love with Miranda (Michelle Monaghan in a surprisingly un-annoying role) while she is spending the week at the resort for a family reunion. Of course, acording to the rules of the genre, he can't tell her that he's married. And when her family finds out the truth, she flees before Eddie can explain the circumstances. You can guess the rest.

Usually the Farrelly brothers make up for their reliance on formula by inserting hilarious gags and grosser-than-gross visuals that sear themselves on your brain. I can only think of one such mement in The Heartbreak Kid: in a sweet (and effective) effort to aleiviate the pain of a man-o-war attack, Lila pulls down her swimsuit and pees on Eddie's back... in public. (For the record, I would do the same for all of you, modesty be damned!) What she reveals under her suit could lead a man to homosexuality: her girl parts look like a hairy hydra! By this point in the movie, I was half asleep, and this visual completely woke me up. I even had to rewind it. This was probably the closest the brothers came to reaching the genius of Kingpin and There's Something About Mary.

Needless to say, I do not give this movie my highest recommendation. Go skeet-surfing instead.