This was an awful film. It should tip you off that it's awful because it stars Alexis Bledel--it's an Alexis Bledel vehicle. That's a tough thing to wrap your mind around, I know, but it's true. And then Carol Burnett, Jane Lynch, and Michael Keaton lost a huge bet of some sort and got wrangled into the movie as well. This is a terrible, terrible movie.
Nothing happens. The main character's name is Ryden. That is a stupid name. No, it's not even a name. The movie opens with graphics. Ryden has a plan for her life and it has four steps in it. This is stupid. She has accomplished the first three things on her list and is going after the fourth. Oh gee, I wonder what will happen. Obviously, she doesn't get the dream job she was interviewing for and then her life completely unravels.
In this world, however, a life completely unraveling means spending a month living with your loving, caring family while your best friend professes his love for you and you hook up with an age-inappropriate hot Brazilian man. The only thing that went wrong was that she didn't get the one job she really wanted. The film attempted to make her look down-and-out and desperate and show her going on other interviews. They did that quick cut truck to make it look like a lot of interviews, but I think it was three. So there were four interviews total and she didn't get those jobs. She kept whining about all the hard work she was doing, but I didn't see it. She sat at her computer once and printed out resumes. And Michael Keaton was right--she was setting her sights too high.
She finally lowered herself to working at her father's luggage store and lasted about 20 minutes. Her "rival"-at the start of the film, Ryden calls this girl her Darth Vader, which makes no sense, but I digress--came in looking for a briefcase or suitcase and Ryden lost it and stormed out. Sure. Clearly, Ryden has hit rock bottom.
This movie was all over the place, much like this review. The best moments were the ones without Alexis Bledel in them. Jane Lynch and Carol Burnett are delightful. Even the kid who played the younger brother was pretty entertaining. Actually, the family minus Alexis Bledel might have made a nice story. I did actually laugh a few times, at Lynch and Burnett. There was practically a different movie about the family, but it didn't get explored.
Early on in the film, a timeline is set up. The younger brother, Hunter, runs up to the father yelling about a boxcar derby race that happens in a month. Being a young boy, he wants to participate. To prove to the audience that the daughter is more important and that this will come back later, the father says he doesn't have time and pushes him away. The boxcar derby race happens at the end of the movie. That means this whole life unraveling bit happens over the course of four weeks. That's ridiculous. It takes longer than four weeks for an entire life to unravel, and even longer to get anyone to care that your life has unraveled.
In four weeks' time, this bitch went on four interviews, whined, went to a party, worked at a luggage store, whined, went shopping, made out with a hot Brazilian guy, worked as a PA, whined, had a day-of-fun at the beach, argued with her father about a buckle business, got her dream job, "worked her ass off," had pool sex with the hot Brazilian guy, and stole an ice cream truck. Then she watched the derby race where her brother probably almost died but because it was a comedy he just landed in a lake, she realized everything she wanted, she quit her job, and moved to New York to find that best friend who was in love her and with whom she now realizes she's in love. They even tried to top it off with a dramatic girl-in-the-room-after-love-professing confusion, but it was short and stupid.
There are so many problems with this movie, it's hard to nail down. The idea of not being able to find a job 2009 is not surprising, so hanging an entire film around it is pretty boring to watch. Descriptions of the movie state the family as being eccentric, but it wasn't really that eccentric. Also, it was never obvious that Ryden was a member of that family. And there was no struggle and no real pain. She was a whiner who didn't get her way immediately. I agree with every bad review it received on Rotten Tomatoes. It's awful.
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