Just Go With It
I’ll admit it: This movie made me laugh. I’m not necessarily proud of that, but it did. What can I say? I have a soft spot for Adam Sandler romantic comedies…
…Or maybe it’s just Jennifer Aniston. Honestly, nothing made me smile more than seeing what Aniston does in this movie as Katherine, a single mom and Sandler’s receptionist, who gets sucked into a farce when Sandler, as plastic surgeon Danny, falls hard for Palmer, a blonde bombshell who balks when Danny tries to spin his typical story of being married to a battle-axe wife. However, when Palmer falls for it and asks to hear the news of impending divorce from the soon-to-be-ex herself, in comes Katherine to save the day.
Of course, we all know it’s not going to be that simple, as anyone who has ever watched a movie (much less an Adam Sandler movie) knows. Here, Sandler and Co. are working from a tailor-made script by Allan Loeb and Timothy Dowling, which basically acts as any other Sandler script to set up his singular brand of arrested youth tom-foolery. Loeb and Dowling’s work is inspired by the film “Cactus Flower,” which was written by Billy Wilder’s great writing partner, I.A.L. Diamond. Don’t look for any passing resemblance to their great collaborations like “Some Like It Hot” and “One, Two, Three” here; this is Sandler country, which means dead comedy horses beaten (oh the plastic surgery jokes!), bodily fluids as comedy (including, admittedly, one of the most original poop jokes I’ve ever seen on-screen), and a mix of cruelty and sentiment that borders on the sociopathic. What happened to the Sandler we saw in “Punch-Drunk Love” and “Funny People” (and almost saw in “Reign Over Me”)?
Thankfully, Aniston saves the movie. It’s quite a shame she hasn’t found too many films that take advantage of the natural comic timing she showed on “Friends.” Like Sandler, she’s been best on-screen when working with riskier material and filmmakers (think “Office Space,” “The Object of My Affection,” and “The Good Girl”). Here, she makes the movie enjoyable almost through sheer willpower alone, and she and Sandler radiate a natural chemistry that makes me wish they had a better vehicle in which to show it off.
