Review Of Love Guaranteed : Routine Romcom Redeemed By Smart Writing

Love Guaranteed(Neflix)

Starring  Rachael Leigh Cook,Damon Wayans Jr.

Directed by Mark Steven  Johnson

Rating: **

A blah  courtroom drama blended into  a bland  rom-com…this is  the best description  for Love , Guaranteed , a trivial pursuit  of   courtship and love nudging a  social issue but barely able to stand on  its  high-heeled feet.

 Outwardly Love Guaranteed  is a well-designed  blues-chaser with two good-looking actors  in well-tailored  clothes and a blasé attitude. But  the façade   of sophistication wears thin as   the  characters  begin to appear  terribly emptied-out and  uninspired.

 The  yarn  takes  off well and then settles down to being a yawn.Susan  Whittaker(Rachel Leigh Cook )  is  one  of those client-less lawyers  who probably specializes  in nuisance litigation. “Nuisance” shows up in  the form of  Nick Evans(Damon Wayans Junior) who seems to be one of those idle-rich  sorts  in pursuit of  a goal in life.

The  “goal” is a  dating site which  “guarantees” love when we  know that no one can  do that: guarantee  love. While  the rest of the world wants to  take China to the court for  a virus fraud, Nick goes  to court for  a dating fraud.

In the hands of  a  comic auteur   like  David Cronenberg  the idea  could have melted and merged into  a  meaningful mound. The  half-baked writing and the  vapid  characters(Susan Whittaker’s two assistants , one camp male  the other a ditsy female, behave like Laurel and Hardy)  doesn’t help  in giving a definitive shape to  the  film’s insipid  aspirations.

Heather Graham(remember her sterling  presence in Drugstore Cowboy?)   makes a belated entry as  a spoilt heiress willing to throw millions at a litigant to quash a legal suit. It’s like  trying to crush a  fly with a steamroller. Nothing  fits. Everything  happens in fits.And that includes the  intelligent moments  that show  up  once in a while, too  rarely to demand a patient viewing.

Interestingly  the hero being a Black American  is  not an issue  here. The film  embraces  colour blindness and a cultural  naivete that wants  us to applaud the film’s racial  freedom in a film that doesn’t respect the audiences’ basic intelligence.