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-

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.

An amusing bit of fluff for a "chick flick." Guys, this is a good date movie! Enough Brad Pitt and silly love crap for them, but amusing enough for us. No gratuitous nudity but HEY, you can't have everything.

An unknown actress named Harley Jane Kozak is the star of this film, portraying every man's dream wife - sexy, intelligent, feisty and funny (all in a charmingly unpredictable package) - while at the same time being a great mother. It is sad that Kozak soon gave up acting for good to raise her own family. Watching this film makes me believe she deserved better than obscurity.

As usual, Brad Pitt displays the talent that would soon make him a superstar, and Bill Pullman also gives a decent performance. The least talented of the four major players is Elizabeth McGovern. She doesn't necessarily give a bad performance, but rather fails to make the role her own. She could have easily been replaced by any other competent actress without altering the chemistry between the characters. Perhaps another actress would have turned in a more memorable performance. McGovern is one of those actresses of whom most people have heard, and yet few can name anything she has ever been in.

As usual with movies aimed toward a female audience, the plot is silly and at times nonsensical. As always, at least one man has to be portrayed as a manipulative scumbag with one thing on his mind while all the female characters are decent and loving and emotionally complex. Thankfully though, this film doesn't take itself too seriously. All in all, despite being a "chick flick," this movie is worth watching - perhaps even twice.

There's a lot to overlook here to try and get some enjoyment out of this, but it is possible. Attractive talented cast with one exception-Pullman's friend and colleague. McGovern is cute a a button as always as was her female co-star. Believable scenarios handled in sometimes clumsy ways but never strays into outright ludicrousness. Comes close though! If you can get past the first hour you'll probably reach the end. Dialogue is clever and relatable. Of course there's a small amount of PC virtue signaling that movies can never seem to avoid no matter the era produced. Can't quite give a 7 but 6 seems fair for a watchable but not memorable comedy. A one view movie, nothing special.