Because I Said So

If you can swallow the beautiful and sexy Mandy Moore as an uncoordinated doofus with low self-esteem who can't find a decent guy to go out with her, then you may be able to get into the spirit of "Because I said So." However, you'll also have to put up with Diane Keaton in a truly grating performance as a neurotic control freak of a mother who spends most of her time obsessing over the romantic travails of her youngest daughter, going so far as to post an ad on an internet dating site seeking out prospective husbands for the unsuspecting girl.

The actions of this modern-day Yenta the Matchmaker set into motion a whole host of sitcom-level complications and romantic comedy hijinks that are somehow supposed to be funny but wind up being merely irritating. The screenplay by Karen Leigh Hopkins and Jessie Nelson comes replete with a bevy of mother/daughter relationship clichés, with some really lame slapstick routines - Keaton getting stuck on an internet porn site, Keaton getting run over by a skater in a park, Keaton getting a cake in her face etc. - thrown in for bad measure.

Beyond Keaton and Moore, Gabriel Macht, Tom Everett Scott and Lauren Graham are just some of the other unfortunate actors trapped inside this "chick flick" fiasco.

I love Diane Keaton, but this was mostly painful. I can only point a finger at the writing because as predictable as this movie is, there are some absolute gems of BRILLIANT acting from both Keaton and Moore. I'm not sure why anyone is in this movie other than Mandy Moore and Diane Keaton because no use is made of them. I sat for the first half hour wondering what any of these actors saw in the script, but I will admit to laughing out loud several times at the painful "family" moments I think people will recognize from their own lives. Diane Keaton deserves a better script for her talents. And when TV actors are trying to transition to film, they should raise the level of their work.

Daphne Wilder (Diane Keaton) happily marries off her two older daughters, Maggie (Lauren Graham) and Mae (Piper Perabo). Sadly her romantically-challenged youngest daughter Milly (Mandy Moore) is giving up. Daphne takes matters into her own hands and interviews men from the internet. She decides on entrepreneur Jason (Tom Everett Scott) and schemes to get them together. Musician Johnny (Gabriel Macht) witnesses the interviews and sets off to meet her himself. Milly ends up dating both men.

This is rather disappointing. I love every one of these actresses. The movie piles on a bunch of rom-com stuff. Bits of it seems fine but most of this is bad. It is bad writing. Keaton is doing some silly slapstick stuff. Moore is rather bland. Perabo doesn't get much screen time. Graham has some limited fun with Tony Hale. The two guys are pretty and possibly in the wrong roles. Macht can play the hard driven businessman better and Scott is the more artistic type. It's a lot of useless fluff that don't come together substantively.

Waw! I have not seen such a bad film in a really long time...more like never actually. this is truly appalling. Lets start with the Small tragedy, the actors. Dian Keaton, normally an amazing actress somehow managed to do a really bad job with this one. Her acting was way over the top and more like hysterical really. It was like she was lending her voice to an animated film! Mandy Moore was actually better than her if u can believe it. But still quite bad. And as for the rest of the cast well there were none! we can say they were put there so that Dian Keaton and Mandy Moore can create dialog with someone other than themselves.

Now for the major tragedy, the script. A horror story put together to make the audience quiver with every uttered line! and the lines just keep getting worse and worse until we reach the climactic scene where we cave in and can no longer hold the vomit! Horrible predictable and very illogical plot. Corny is an understatement for the lines of this dialog. No depth or substance to characters. It's such a disappointment.

In "Because I Said So" Diane Keaton plays an overprotective mother, Daphne, to Millie (Mandy Moore). The other daughters, Lauren Graham and Piper Perabo, are married so their lives are OK, but Millie doesn't have a man, so her life is empty, or so says Keaton. The main problem with this movie is that Keaton plays the overprotective mother very over the top, and it's just not that funny.

The sisters all have their own charm, although Perabo is underused. And the parade of men that come in and out of their lives are all very handsome. I particularly enjoyed the contrasts between the man Daphne chose for Millie (Jason, Tom Everett Scott) and the man that Millie chose for herself (Johnny, Gabriel Macht).

If they had chosen to follow more of a romantic drama route and explored all the different relationships, this film would have been significantly better. But as a comedy, "Because I Said So" is overblown and not funny.