A la recherche de l'homme parfait

"Because I Said So" is one of those types of movies. Yes, one of THOSE types. They keep being made because it seems that the genre of woman-centered dramedies that often blend into one another make for great date movies. Supposedly. Or at least because they continue to say so in all the woman's magazines at the grocery store check-out line.

This one stars Diane Keaton, who has been in one too many of these over the years, Lauren Graham, who has seen better writing on her series "Gilmore Girls", Piper Perabo, whose career tends to float under the radar, and Mandy Moore, whose range is limited but whose charm seems endless. The latter three star as sisters with a ridiculously over-involved mother (Keaton), who go through ups and downs, weddings, and such, while mom pokes her nose too deeply into Moore's love life. It sometimes feels like the confession section of "Cosmo" magazine crossed with the advice column. The answer (read, the ending) is visible from the get-go, and getting there leads to frequent rolling of one's eyes.

This is silly, light and fluffy comedy with little on its mind but the predictable happy ending. It's an okay way to pass the time, but expect to feel guilty in the morning.

It's easy to understand why this movie is badly reviewed by critics and so well received by audiences. Diane Keaton starts in her most Keaton of all as the single mother of three daughters. Two of which are taken and one of which is single. She's of course constantly meddling in their lives and trying to set up her single daughter whose a chef played by a ridiculously charming Mandy Moore. She posts a single ad for her unknowing daughter which draws two suitors for different reasons and complicates things. Piper Perabo, Lauren Graham, a hunky Gabriel Macht and sexy Tom Everett Scott also star. The movie is chaotic and definitely resembles it's manic, overbearing lead character. But the relationship feels genuine and the movie is heartfelt and engaging. There's no doubt that it's a bit unfocused but it's also undeniably charming and relatable to most of us.

Diane Keaton wants her daughters to do things "Because I Said So" in this 2007 movie.

Keaton is a neurotic mother who is constantly poking her nose into her daughters' lives. She is desperate for her youngest (Mandy Moore) to find a man to spend the rest of her life with, so she puts an ad on a dating site and interviews potential men. Yeah, that certainly is a way to find a life partner for your daughter - advertise and then screen them for her.

One of the problems for me in this movie was Diane Keaton's performance. Here is an excellent, wonderful actress, capable of so much, playing the most annoying woman in history. If she were my mother, she'd have been dead long before her "big birthday" - 60. I don't know what the director was thinking having her go so over the top like that.

Not to mention, this film had Lifetime written all over it. How the producers got movie people to participate in this is to their credit, though it's done all the time - a TV script put on the big screen because someone with clout gets a movie star to agree to it. We saw it in "Before and After," "Six Days and Seven Nights," "What Lies Beneath," that movie with Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd that I saw in the theater and blocked out of my mind - all TV fare turned into bad movies and starring big people.

I guess you can tell I didn't like it. I very rarely hate anything. If you've read some of my other reviews and find you agree with me on a lot of films, when you see this one is coming on TV, run; if you are tempted to put it on your Netflix list, don't do it.

The bad thing about this movie is that it's nothing the audience hasn't seen before. Lots of directors choose a generic montage of old-fashioned family pictures set to a mellow thematically-charged song for the opening credits. Lots of romantic comedies include generous dosages of overbearing parents, predictable twists-and-turns, and decor that looks like it came out of the Ikia catalog.

Nonetheless, 'Because I Said So' is, for lack of a better word, cute. It's predictable in a way that one expects the characters in slasher movies to die, corny in a way that only overbearing mothers meddling in the affairs of their offspring can be. And yet, isn't that the reason this genre continues to be popular, BECAUSE of the comfort of knowing what's going to happen rather than in spite of it? Nobody went to see "Bridget Jones' Diary" expecting her NOT to end up with somebody, after all.

Predictability aside, the music was fitting, the scenery was attractive - one wonders if somebody on the set was a gifted cake decorator before the film's inception, or even because of it - and the main/supporting cast were all passable-to-energized. Diane Keaton in all of her poof skirts and unnecessarily large heels, is just enough playful and neurotic to make the role work - I particularly enjoyed her speech about motherhood being the most difficult form of love. I've enjoyed Mandy Moore's rise to indie film infamy since "Saved!", more than I did her semi-generic pop starlet days, and I thought she did a nice job here. And though this is largely considered a "chick flick", I do want to point out that any boyfriends, brothers, husbands, etc. who get roped into seeing it may well enjoy the antics of Keaton's character's dog, who provides slap-sticky yet appreciated comic relief.

All in all, it's not something I'd probably buy on DVD, but as a fun and easy way to spend two hours, 'Because I Said So' is worth wading through the clichés.

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.