Only You

Clifford Godfrey (Andrew McCarthy) designs doll house accessories in Chicago. His girlfriend dumps him right before Christmas. He has two non-refundable tickets and nobody to go with. He's drinking alone in a bar when Amanda Hughes (Kelly Preston) stumbles into his life. They spend the night together but she doesn't remember it especially traveling to another country. Clare Enfield (Helen Hunt) is also at the resort taking pictures for a brochure.

Cliff and Amanda are pretty annoying characters. Andrew McCarthy is still trying to live off of his boyish charms but this character is too much for him to overcome. At least, Amanda is suppose to be the flighty self-obsessed high maintenance girl. Helen Hunt is sweet and adorable. This is a weak rom-com with very limited comedy. This is not a good showcase for Betty Thomas' directorial debut. The movie could have been saved with a more compelling Cliff but he's pretty pathetic here. Amanda doesn't actually have to work very hard to wrap him around her little finger.

This film is not what you would call a cinematic gem, but its not too bad either. Andrew McCarthy is a doll house maker who constantly falls in love with magazine cover girls, but is that what he is really looking for? The locations in this film are really beautiful, and McCarthy and Hunt do a good job of acting out their specified characters. Kelly Prestons gold digging bimbo is a really annoying character, but she was very suitable in the part. Its quite a pleasant 80 minute journey, and it delivers exactly what you would expect from the brief summaries given of the film. Unfortunately it is such a cliche in parts that you already know what will be said before its delivered. Also the characters were a bit dull, especially in the end scene, although that would be more the fault of the script writers than the actors. As romantic comedies go, its average at best.

The problem with 'Only You' isn't so much that this low-budget fare is structured upon ever romantic comedy cliché you can think of. Andrew McCarthy plays the misguided fool who is torn between the insincere bimbo (Kelly Preston) that he spends the Christmas holiday at a tropical resort after being dumped and in a drunken haze, travels there with his new companion. The clerk at the travel agency (Helen Hunt) who wouldn't give him a refund for his trip earlier in the evening coincidentally shows up there too, on a freelance photography gig (seriously, these people must be traveling on supersonic rockets to get from Chicago to the beachside resort so quickly). And of course, the gold-digging bimbo treats him like crap and he slowly starts to realize that perhaps, the real girl for him, is the genuine travel agent/photographer he spends a lot of time with on his vacation when the bimbo is constantly hanging out somewhere with more manly men who swoon her. And yada, yada, yada... the foolish protagonist must make up his mind about what kind of lady he wants, and well... it's not only typical to romantic comedy plots, it's typical Andrew Mccarthy.

Granted the movie does offer at least a few laughs, but the movie would've been much more believable had all of this not happened in the course of about ten days. True, McCarthy's character was impulsive, but it didn't seem to square that Helen Hunt's character was, too. But of course, this is a movie. And not even a really good one, either.

I like Andrew McCarthy, and he was excellent in this film. There's a lot of good laughs in the film although beneath the comedy is some very real-life tragic situations.

It's too bad that the selfish beautiful airhead (Kelly Preston)has to be blonde. Aren't they stereotyped enough already? Similarly, the predatory males are latin-blood.

Helen Hunt is excellent. The definitive scene where she falls in love is very well done, but with too much emphasis on the maternal.

Despite the ending being silly, I gave this a 7.

I thought the movie was pretty good. I hadn't seen it in a long time, so when I saw it on television the other day I was pleasantly surprised. True it was very predictable, but I still thought it was great. I love Andrew McCarthy and Helen Hunt.