El favor

Kathy (Harley Jane Kozak) is married to Peter (Pullman) with two kids. However she fantasizes over a college boyfriend. As a favour her friend Emily (Elizabeth McGovern) looks him up on a trip to Denver and comes back with tales of this powerful, beautiful man. This immediately causes a rift between them which is resolved when Emily falls pregnant to steady lover Elliot (Brad Pitt). At this point the plot of college boyfriends takes a sideline to the plot of Emily's pregnancy.

This starts off as a curiosity with it being funny to see stars like Brad Pitt and Bill Pullman in a less than starry production. However it is quite amusing for the most. The main problem with this is that it doesn't seem to want to settle on one plot - there's the Kathy fantasy, the Emily pregnancy, the Emily/Tom affair, the Kathy/Peter marriage, the Peter/Joe suspecting affair piece. There's so much going on that it gets a little disjoined and it's difficult to follow one cohesive story. Sure there's links between them all but it still makes for a film with no clear direction.

The story is the main weakness, as everything else is pretty good. The performances are all touched with a sense of fun that adds to the comic atmosphere of the film. However once all the storylines come in it's difficult to keep that element, especially near the end where the stories begin to come together and a lot of the resolutions begin to come together due to coincidence as much as anything else.

It's also difficult to believe that Emily wouldn't jump at the chance of being with Brad Pitt, or that Pullman would get so confused over the situation, never mind the fact that Kathy's dream lover looks like Billy Ray Cyrus - who would fall of that?!

What starts as an inoffensive comedy becomes overly complicated and relies on the type of solutions that would be more at home in a TV sitcom rather than a film. It's a shame because the rest is not as bad as you could have been. Oh - and it's spelt with an 'U' by the way.

...but it wasn't great, either. An okay, light-hearted, feel-good comedy. Had a little too much TV-sitcomishness about it, and the main character lady was a little too neurotic, and her husband was a little too suspicious in a TV sitcom sort of way. But all of that was just "a little" and overall it was fun to watch. Mind you -- we caught it on cable -- I wouldn't have wanted to rent it!

I give it a B-

O my God. This is so bad it's nearly funny. Yes, nearly. The twists and all the cliché's are in here. I just saw the movie with a friend (because we had breakfast and put the TV on) and just kept shaking are heads.

Harley Jane Kozak is so overacting it's just pathetic. And why Bill Pullman is playing in ANY film is beyond me. The guy has ONE look. The "i lost my glasses and now i have to squeeze my eyes to see anything" look.

Brad Pitt just wasn't convincing. He's done far more better jobs than this.

This film is just BAD. No surprise from a director who gave us 'gems' as 'Mystic Pizza' and 'my favorite martian'.

Sorry, i hate to be all negative about a film but this one gave me no choice.

Lemme just say right of the bat that this movie was so cute:o) And quite unpredictable. Seeing Brad Pitt was definitely a sight for sore eyes though, lol. A gal loves her husband, but thinks of her ex boyfriend from high school, who slept with her friend after she asked her to, who has a boyfriend (sort of) who she ends up having a baby with... yeah, that's called CONFUSION, lol. But I like where you have to remember and think and take a step back and realize certain things... Definitely deserve a least a star of two more on IMDB. Great movie, see it:o)

I feel this film is actually a lot better than its rating here suggests. At times it can be very hard to like the Kathy character, because of her silliness of focusing on ridiculous and very selfish ideas/things. But it's a comedy, so don't get overly worked up about it and just go with it, and you'll probably be quite glad you did by the end. Overall the film does have a number of very funny moments and many very strong performances. I can see how some may just get fed up with the film and write it off sort of speak, mainly because of the Kathy character and some of her decisions. But just hang with it for a bit, as the film works out pretty well after all is said and done. Larry Miller, Bill Pullman, Brad Pitt, Harley Jane Kozak, Elizabeth McGovern and Ken Wahl all do a great job with the roles they have here. It's a great cast that does have a lot of chemistry. I'm betting they had some good fun making this. The film definitely flirts with disaster at times in terms of the story; But by the end, it mostly works out to be a really fun flick with some very funny moments, and some very relatable heartfelt moments here and there too.

6.5/10.