2 Young 4 Me - Un fidanzato per mamma

Director/writer Heckerling used to be one of the most bankable names in Hollywood. Now, not so much.

Audience reaction to this film -- plus the fact it was packaged by a Spanish production company -- pretty much tells us that her batting average is not quite what it was.

On paper it must have looked clever. A Rom-Com with a built-in 10 year age difference (older woman, younger man) starring one of the most personable male leads ever (Rudd) and one of the most beautiful women since the Sumerians started keeping records (Pfeiffer), along with a wonderfully precocious teen star (Saoirse Ronan) as insurance.

Mix in a (incredbly horrific) trope involving "Mother Nature" appearing in the story at random, and add one of Heckerling's favorite (but most over-rated) actors (Stacy Dash) and -- in theory -- you should have a hit.

In fact, all you have when the dust settles is Rudd's charm and Pfeiffer's beauty and a very forgettable script.

Considering the talent involved - writer/director Amy Heckerling and actors Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd - I Could Never Be Your Woman could contend for the most high-profile motion picture yet to take the direct-to-DVD route. This wasn't intended to be the path traveled by this motion picture; had all gone well, it would have been on multiplex screens a year or two ago. Financial mismanagement and bad decisions made the movie unreleasable and it languished until The Weinstein Company executed their home video rights. The result is a mixed blessing for Heckerling - her movie gets to see the light of day but it does so with the unenviable "direct-to-DVD" label. It's good enough to warrant better than the curt dismissal it is likely to receive in some corners.

Just got back from the Maui Film Festival where this film was shown. I'd have to say that I was pleasantly surprised on how good this movie actually was.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Pual Rudd have great chemistry throughout the whole movie. Jon Lovitz appears in the film also and adds a great comedic experience to the film. He stars as Michelle's ex-husband in the movie and I laughed every time the both of them were on screen together.

Pual Rudd was fantastic in this movie and it shows what he can do when given co-top billing in a comedy. He was great in 40-year old virgin and in this he is no different.

The movie has the same type of feel of Clueless, as it should, their both directed by the same person. Give this movie a chance, it was funny and kept you entertained throughout the whole movie.

I didn't give too much detail as you can tell, i just wanted to let you know a little bit of what to expect and how well the actors/actress's come together in this movie.

Great date movie/or a movie to take your significant other. I promise you'll both have lots of laughs.

My wife and I happen to be one of those Ashton/Demi couples and have been together before it became popular and acceptable. I never had much of a problem with it but my wife did initially. The film did a remarkably accurate job of portraying what goes on in the head of the older female. It had us ROTFL as we had gone through similar situations ourselves when we were dating.

Paul Rudd is very funny much funnier than I remember him from Friends and Michelle Pfeiffer is perfect as the sexy, and somewhat insecure love interest. The daughter/mother relationship was also really well done - the daughter being smart, just precocious and innocent enough without being too artificially sweet which was very hard to pull off. The dialog in the film is clever and witty but light and self-parodying along the lines of Clueless.

Overall, a very sweet and funny movie - I haven't enjoyed a romantic comedy this much since Annie Hall or Sleepless in Seattle.

Amy Heckerling's latest romantic comedy, I Could Never Be Your Woman, got, to use a proverbial word, shafted. It was meant for theatrical release and went straight to DVD due to some bad deals done with one of the producers. It's a shame despite the fact that Heckerling's comedy was far from being top-shelf work. It certainly stands a good chance at ranking well enough alongside (and probably better than) many of the tripe conventional market-stuffers that are out in cineplexes. Her film posits that a middle-aged TV writer (Michelle Pfieffer) has some angst and insecurities in dating one of the new stars of her TV show (Paud Rudd), and it's not a bad premise. This is also thrown in a quasi plot thread involving her daughter (Atonement's Saoirse Ronan, couldn't tell it was the same girl she's that good) as she tries to navigate her first possible boyfriend.

A lot of this isn't delivered with all of the best execution- certainly it's hard to figure on what exactly makes the Tracy Ullman bits funny as they're slipped in with some awkward soft-focus and at ill-timing- and there's something kind of fishy about putting such an actress like Michelle Pfieffer, who is still incredibly beautiful for any age, in the role of an insecure woman who can't see herself with such a younger man after such a long break from being with a man. At the same time, there is a good deal that does work to Heckerling's advantage, such as the bond between the mother and daughter in the story that doesn't ring as being sappy or trite like in other rom-coms or flicks with mother-daughter talks and such. And almost in spite of the bright lighting, Paul Rudd lays on the same charm and wit carried over from the Judd Apatow comedies (if, of course, nowhere near as funny in the sensibility of crudeness). And who can't love Jon Lovitz or Fred Willard?

So with I Could Never Be Your Woman, it's good for a rental, but that's not really the point with the release issue. It's the kind of movie, as with Heckerling's others, that play for laughs with a big audience, and are perfect for a certain niche of female viewers and die-hard rom-com afficionados. It's light and slight and not too terrible, if not much memorable either.