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Sometimes it’s no fun to be the one who has to say it out loud, but I said I would review this flick, so I shall. Alex and Emma was not a good movie. It wasn’t even mediocre. It wasn’t romance happening on the screen — but rather a study in how to remain stiff and uncomfortable. And I’m sorry to say it also was not a comedy — not even remotely funny. One or two good lines made it through to the audience, but the remainder stunk to high heaven. I hate when they do that to good actresses/actors.
If that wasn’t bad enough, both Kate Hudson and Luke Wilson (normally great on screen) just didn’t seem to have any electricity for one another, and if you’re gonna pair up two people whom you expect the audience to believe will fall in love with each other by the end of the movie, then you at least should get people who can “act” like they like one another. Duh. Something was way off. These two did not appear to belong together on stage.
Alex, the author (Wilson), is portrayed as totally unkempt and Emma, the stenographer (Hudson), as totally glam…her hair never changes. Her apartment is posh, his is crumbling in around him. He apparently made a bundle on his first book, ‘cuz he’s been offered 125 million by his agent/publisher for his second book, yet he lives in a dive. What the reasoning for that was, I shall never know. Oh, wait — it must have been so at one point Alex could take a leak with the door open while he continues to dictate to his stenographer. If living in a dump was a method of proving Alex was down on his luck, they needed to do better than that. By the way, anyone know a first/second time author who gets paid that much — or anyone who gambles a cool million all on the same number in a game of chance? Double duh. And the stenographer, who we have to assume makes less than 125 million per year, lives in a very nice apartment. She must have a rich daddy ‘cuz she worked all month without a pay check and still had money to buy food to take to Alex’s house.
Speaking of food and money… At one point Alex has writer’s block and can’t compose, so they play hookey. They take a ferry ride, eat out, etc. Who paid for all that? Emma? The one who hasn’t gotten a pay check for a month? Or Alex, the man who is apparently a best seller but who doesn’t have enough money to purchase another laptop after the thugs he owes money to burns his. (If that had been me, I’d have gone to my agent/publisher and gotten another laptop, wouldn’t you?) Not having a laptop was a real convenient way to get Alex and Emma together…nothing like a couple of stupid thugs to burn the only device Alex had to use to pay them back with…smart guys.
This movie did not follow the rules set by their own people. When putting together a movie about authors, shouldn’t they have talked to some authors and find out the particulars? There were just way too many careless blunders to make the movie believable for me. They must have forgotten that audiences will always know that they didn’t do their homework — just like I knew it when I saw the movie.
Summary: not funny, not romantic, not believable, characters not compatible, research not done. I give Alex and Emma a big fat goose egg.
