The Proposal Review
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 06.22.2009
Has Sandra Bullock's career slump finally been deported?
Directed by: Anne Fletcher Written by: Pete Chiarelli
Starring: Sandra Bullock - Margaret Tate Ryan Reynolds - Andrew Paxton Malin Akerman - Gertrude Mary Steenburgen - Grace Paxton Craig T. Nelson - Joe Paxton Oscar Nunez - Ramone Aasif Mandvi - Bob Spaulding Betty White - Grandma Annie "Gammy" Denis O'Hare - Mr. Gilbertson
Running Time: 108 minutes
Rated PG-13 for sexual content, nudity and language
Sandra Bullock is a star of ineffable charm and undeniable spunkiness. The actress has always been a pleasant, warm persona throughout her film career, which burst into mainstream consciousness with roles in the action films Demolition Man and Speed in 1993 and 1994. Since then she has proven her forte is in comedy. She has charmed audiences in films such as While You Were Sleeping, Hope Floats, 28 Days, the Miss Congeniality films and Two Week’s Notice. She has also made forays into more serious fare such as Murder By Numbers, A Time to Kill and the Oscar darling Crash, but despite those roles she always seems to be associated with her comedic roles. Her star has fallen off in recent times however; none of her films since her role in Crash have connected with audiences whether it be her reteaming with Speed co-star Keanu Reeves in The Lake House, the second biopic on Truman Capote to come out in a year’s time known as Infamous or the supernatural drama Premonition. It is perhaps no surprise that in her first film in two years, she has returned to the genre where she’s been most well-received, starring in The Proposal alongside Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson and Betty White.
The film stars Bullock as Margaret Tate, the hard-nosed and ruthless editor-n-chief of Colden Books in New York City. She has a reputation for being a monster to work for and with; as she walks into the office, instant messages start to fly proclaiming “The Witch is on her broom” and people start to desperately look busy. One of those people is Andrew Paxton (Reynolds), her assistant. Andrew has been working for Margaret for three years as her assistant and has hopes of becoming an editor himself one day and even being published. Those really seem to be a pipe dream however until one particular fact about Margaret comes to the forefront and threatens to become her undoing: she’s Canadian. Moreover, her work visa has expired, and she’s been brushing it off to the point that immigration is now ready to deport her. In a moment of desperation she drafts Reynolds without his agreement into going along with the charade that they are in love and getting married. This of course brings immigration down on her head in the name of Mr. Gilbertson (O’Hare), a snippy immigration agent. Andrew and Margaret run off to Alaska to get to know each other before the test to prove their love and meet Andrew’s family and friends. This includes his sentimental mother Grace (Steenburgen) and estranged father Joe (Nelson), his grandmother Gammy (White) who is having her ninetieth birthday and his ex-girlfriend Gertrude (Akerman). Sparks of the wrong sort fly between them at first, but as time goes on, they start to realize how close to reality the façade of their business arrangement is.
The Proposal was is the first produced script by Pete Chiarelli, who has served as a producer on other movies including the action hit Eagle Eye last year. The core of the story, that of two people who pretend to be in love only to really fall in love, is far from original; it was old hat even when it connected with audiences in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Any audience member who has seen more than three or four romantic comedies can pretty much imagine exactly how this is going to plot out with a good degree of accuracy. What Chiarelli’s script lacks in originality of concept, it surprisingly makes up for in a sense of decent dialogue and charmingly oddball characters. Not every character works, and certainly not every character gets the attention they should; the character of Gertrude for example feels like a part that may have been chopped down in editing, or perhaps simply didn’t have much to her when the script was being penned. Likewise, a local named Ramone who is the town of Sitka’s stripper, marriage performer and store vendor, doesn’t work nearly as well as the rest of the characters, seeming much like a modern Apatow-style character thrown into a screwball rom-com from the fifties. Otherwise, the script keeps things simple and is unapologetic about its throwback style, making no bones about its unoriginality and instead presenting itself as a framework for the actors to lift the movie.
And lift the movie, they certainly do. Bullock and Reynolds as the romantic leads in this particular caper carry the film quite capably based on their comedic skills and surprising chemistry. Bullock has always been known for her ebullient, generally warm and peppy characters; even in a movie like Miss Congeniality where she is supposed to be playing an unlikable character it is her charm that carried her through as a sort of nerdy, uncouth sort. Bullock is playing very much against type as Margaret, taking on a role that is supposed to be inherently unlikable and will have to make the journey to sympathetic and loving by the end. This hard-ass behavior is carried more in other characters’ reactions to her than anything she handles herself; an editor she fires goes off on her and calls her a “poisonous bitch,” while it is in her underling’s panicked reactions to her that we learn how intimidating she is. In these early scenes Bullock seems to be somewhat lost; she simply doesn’t seem to know how to be evil. Luckily, Ryan Reynolds knows how to handle his role; in the early parts of the film he is playing a role somewhat similar to parts of Definitely, Maybe as the put-upon assistant. Once the plot gets moving and the two end up in Alaska, their chemistry really takes off and their interactions are actually quite enjoyable to watch. Despite the lack of surprises in the script the duo play off each other very nicely, such as a scene in which they improvise the story of Andrew’s proposal and try to one-up each other in the process. Both are natural comedians and they are completely within their element here, making for an enjoyable experience that could have been easily sunk by a different cast. The performances by the rest of the cast are decent to good, with Craig T. Nelson and Mary Steenburgen adding some gravitas to the parental roles and Denis O'Hare being appropriately threatening as the immigration agent hot on their trails. In an act that will be unsurprising to many who have seen her comedic skills on display before, Betty White very nearly steals the entire movie as Gammy. White’s innocent face and nice-old-grandma demeanor is so earnest that it’s difficult not to laugh when she comes out with something quite inappropriate. There’s more to the act than just that however, and White is simply a joy to watch in any scene she pops her octogenarian head into.
Director Anne Fletcher is known primarily for her work as a choreographer, though fans of the romantic comedy genre will be familiar with one of her two previous directorial job with last year’s 27 Dresses (the other is Step Up, which is better off not discussed at all). Dresses was a surprise hit on the strength of its leads, and Fletcher is in a similar situation here. She lets the story and performances unfold on their own and doesn’t take too heavy of a hand in letting it do so. Her strength as a director is rising in that respect, as Dresses occasionally reeked of a director who wasn’t entirely comfortable with the balance between too much and not enough. Here she does a good job of working with cinematographer Oliver Stapleton in making Massachusetts look very much like Alaska—and look attractive whichever way you slice it. The score is fairly generic for a romantic comedy as provided by Sex in the City composer Aaron Zigman, and it appears Fletcher could still use some work deciding what to cut and what to keep; as said previously Akerman’s role as Gertrude seems overly cut up and yet a bizarre and off-putting scene where Margaret encounters Gammy in the woods in Native American regalia is left in for no apparent reason than to garner laughs—which it doesn’t. Fletcher is far from her peak but she’s learning from her mistakes and that is encouraging to see.
The 411: I am as surprised as anyone to see how much I enjoyed The Proposal, a movie that takes a tired concept and manages to inject life into it based on the strength of its cast. Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds conjure up a chemistry that allows the movie to carry through on their able shoulders and the supporting cast is quite good, especially Betty White. Despite some scenes that don't work and times when the "been there, seen that" feel start to seep in, Anne Fletcher's third directorial effort manages to rise above the low bar set by most romantic comedies to be an easy hour and forty-eight minute experience to sit through.
