A Lot Like Love
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"A Lot Like Love" is a romance between two of the dimmer bulbs of their generation. Judging by their dialogue, Oliver and Emily have never read a book or a newspaper, seen a movie, watched TV, had an idea, carried on an interesting conversation or ever thought much about anything. The movie thinks they are cute and funny, which is embarrassing, like your uncle who won't stop with the golf jokes. This is not the fault of the stars, Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet, who are actors forced to walk around in Stupid Suits.
"A Lot Like Love," written by Colin Patrick Lynch and directed by Nigel Cole, is about two people who have arrived at adulthood unequipped for the struggle. The lives of Oliver and Emily are Idiot Plots, in which every misunderstanding could be solved by a single word they are vigilant never to utter. They Meet Cute, over and over again. They keep finding themselves alone because their lovers keep walking out on them. Well, no wonder. "I'm going," one of her lovers says, and goes. Any more of an explanation and she might have had to take notes.
He has an Internet startup selling diapers over the Web. She's dumped by a rock musician in the movie's opening scene, where she seems to be a tough goth chick, but that's just the costume. Later Ollie gives her a camera and she becomes a photographer, and even has a gallery exhibit of her works, which look like photos taken on vacation with cell phone cameras and e-mailed to you by the children of friends.
The movie is 95 minutes long, and neither character says a single memorable thing. You've heard of being too clever by half? Ollie and Emily are not clever enough by three-quarters. During a dinner date they start spitting water at each other. Then she crawls under the table, not for what you're thinking, but so they can trade sides and spit in the opposite direction. Then it seems like she's choking on her food, but he refuses to give her the Heimlich maneuver, and even tells the waitress not to bother. So take a guess: Is she really choking, or not? If she's playing a trick, she's a doofus, and if she isn't, he's a doofus. They shouldn't be allowed to leave the house without a parent or adult guardian.
They continue to Meet Cute over many long years, which are spelled out in titles: "Three Years Later," "Six Months Later," and so on. I was reminded of the little blue thermometers telling you the software will finish downloading in 19 hours. Their first Meet Cute is a doozy: On a flight to New York, she enlists him in the Mile-High Club before they even know each other's names. But that's Strike One against him, she says, because she had to make the first move. Yeah, like a guy on an airplane should push into the restroom for sex with a woman he doesn't know. That's how you get to wear the little plastic cuffs.
Still later, they sing together, surprisingly badly. The movie is filled with a lot of other pop music. These songs tend toward plaintive dirges complaining, "My life can be described by this stupid song." At one point he flies to New York to pitch his dot-com diapers to some venture capitalists, and is so inarticulate and clueless he could be a character in this movie. To call "A Lot like Love" dead in the water is an insult to water.
With so much that I liked, I still felt the book needed just a hint more of vulnerability for DIK status. A scene where the heroine and hero opened up more to each other, sharing more intimate thoughts and feelings. A scene to tug at your heartstrings. Still this is a book that I can unequivocally recommend.
A Lot Like Love tests the maxim of whether true love is meant to be. Fate, or something a lot like it, keeps bringing Oliver and Emily together. For each encounter, one or both of them is unready to make a commitment. Yet it's clear, even to them, that they connect better with one another than with the other possible "candidates" in their lives. Although there's an underlying current of melancholy in some of the scenes, director Nigel Cole keeps the tone from becoming too maudlin. And A Lot Like Love doesn't demand the kinds of intervention by chance that formed the backbone of Peter Chelsom's Serendipity.
It's easy to be cynical about a film like this, especially when you see the number of starry-eyed romantic comedies that I do. But A Lot Like Love has enough sincerity that it's not easily dismissed as just another attempt to plunder a lucrative market. And, by not going too far overboard into drama, it avoids becoming cloying and artificial. I like the movie and the way the story progresses. And, though it doesn't teach any life lessons (nor does it seek to), it may remind those who see it of the simple truth that it's the unplanned things in life that are often the most rewarding.
I had always admired the sport from afar. I love to see people dance on wheels, slicing through the air seamlessly, carefree and joyful, with ease and confidence. My favorite genre of skating stems from the roller dancing scene of the 1970s and '80s.
It's also very Black, at least in the corner of the skate community that I love. A somewhat unspoken segregation exists in the American roller rink scene, where specific styles of music dictate the composition of the crowd.
I have thrown myself into this hobby wholeheartedly, in a way that surprises me sometimes. It feels a lot like love. That said, it did take me a while to get comfortable on skates, and as an adult, I'm not used to feeling that awkward in my body. I got real familiar with picking myself off the floor.
Some of my favorite skaters are the ones who have been at it for 30-40 years, whole lifetimes of floating in a circle on wheels. A guy who looked like my granddad, with his nickname, DW, etched into his custom skates, once taught me to turn corners by lifting one of my legs. "Like a rudder," he yelled at me, over the blaring house music. "You can always use it!" He held my hand as we skated around the rink a few times, my face stuck in an open-mouthed grin.
That's the other thing I love: the hand-holding. It's a gentle art that I certainly haven't mastered, but the few times I've skated with a partner, it has this deep intimacy to it: skating in rhythm with a stranger, holding their hand while you spin in a circle.
On a really good night, when the floors feel as smooth as glass, and the music grooves just right, it's like we're all floating, skating to the same song, but in our own unique ways, together but separate. The main character energy some skaters exude is delightful, and to swim amongst it, expressing my own skate self, is extremely freeing. There's an invisible web of sound and breeze, carrying us all.
"My goal is to skate like you," she said, almost under her breath. I tried to contain my pride. "Keep at it!" I yelled over my shoulder. A few minutes later, I tripped, fell, quickly picked myself up, and then kept at it.
In their own expression of love for Mary and gratitude for their church, the choir at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Littleton performed a one-of-a-kind sound during a solemn traditional Mass July 16.
We also get to see some more of Cameron and Jack, the hero and heroine from Something About You. And this investigation continues on a little with what Cameron and Jack unraveled in the last book. While I was a little disappointed that we deviated from the norm of having a female lawyer lead, I liked the theme of staying with the FBI office and agents we met briefly in the last book.
I just got my notice today that A Lot Like Love had shipped and I can't wait to read it. Julie James is an auto-buy author for me and I can't wait to read this one. It sounds like it was right on par with the rest of her books!
The majority of the books reviewed at this site have been provided for free by publishers, authors, or other third parties like NetGalley or Edelweiss. Acceptance of a free copy does not guarantee a review or a positive review.
A few years passed. Emily is no longer a hippy wannabe with black dyed hair. She is now a beautiful brunette and an aspiring actress. She makes passionate love to her boyfriend, and he tells her that the sex was great. The two seem happy, but he leaves the room to work on his laptop. Emily gets a call that tells her that she has an interview and she excitedly tells her boyfriend who looks at her with disdain. He breaks up with her. She looks disheartened.
Few months later, Emily is still engaged, but realizes that she doesn't love her fiance. She breaks up her engagement. She looks up Oliver, but all the while, having heard from her brunette friend that he is about to be married. She goes to his house. He immediately notices her, she looks back at him, embarrassed. When Oliver quickly runs to her, she tries to run away but hits her head on the glass door. Everyone crowds around her, and urges Oliver to go back to the wedding. But Oliver helps Emily get up and asks her what she is doing at his place. She says that she looked him up. She then says that she should leave, her teary eyes looking back at him. Everyone at the wedding is staring at him, and he is staring at Emily who leaves. He looks in Emily's direction, at the party, and then back at where Emily was. He quickly runs to catch her. When she is walking to her car, he stops her. Everyone from the party followed him. It turns out that it was his sisters' wedding, not his. Emily and Oliver laugh. They kiss.
While flying from Los Angeles to New York, Oliver Martin (Ashton Kutcher) meets Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) and they have sex in the restroom. They stay together along the day in New York, when Oliver discloses the planning of his life - his future career, successful job and then raising a family. He gives the phone number of his mother to Emily and asks her to call seven years later to check. For seven years, they occasionally meet each other, and in the end, their relationship becomes love.
A quick fling in an airplane restroom kicks off six years of chance meetings between Oliver Granger and Emily Friehl (Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet), as they try to figure out life, love, and whether they like one another enough to commit to something more than casual sex. 781b155fdc