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Something strange happened watching the latest romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock, when expecting to hate it or be mildly amused by it it turned out to be a more fun experience than it should be. This is a romantic comedy after all and it keeps clearly within all the boundaries the genre has set up and from the moment you see two people arguing you know they’ll end up in each others arms at the end of the film. But movies like this are about the obstacles, not about the outcome.
In The Proposal Sandra Bullock plays Samantha Tate: a pushy boss who’s about to be deported back to Canada for not having her immigration papers “in ordnung”. While in panic she comes up with the plan to blackmail her assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) into a sham-marriage so she can stay. Unfortunately for not only is the immigration onto her, but she’s about to get a piece of her own medicine as Andrew notices how she’s completely dependent on him after years of being a suppressed worker-bee. Within a couple of days she will need to know everything about him so the Immigration-service believes it’s not a sham, and he takes her up to his family to celebrate his grandma’s 90th birthday.
This is the point where logic comes in. I mean, why would you go to all the trouble to do that when you can just marry and be a legal citizen. Hop in with each other for all I care if you want to make it seem legit. Apparently the immigration-service has the right to invade your privacy to the fullest extent: questioning everybody around you about your personal life and even attending the wedding. Now I might be wrong, but I can’t imagine this being actually true in real life.
The movie is better than it should be and it’s got its cast to thank for it. Bullock can elevate these kinds of movies and Reynolds also has a great screen presence. Something he has shown in movies like Van Wilder and Wolverine. They’re supported by Golden Girl Betty White showing that you can still work at 87, the always grumpy looking Craig T. Nelson and the at 56 still great looking Mary Steenburgen. With a cast like this it’s hard to go wrong and even scenes that would’ve been terrible in the hands of lesser actors actually work. The scene where Betty White does a Native American dance in the middle of the woods and is joined by Sandra Bullock who starts to rap about sweaty balls or something like that is a good example of just that.
Everything was predictable in the movie and the movie does not hide that, so when Bullock mentions she can’t swim you just know that she at one point ends up in the water. But like I mentioned earlier this movie somehow was less annoying than it should’ve been and so I’m forgiving for the lack of originality and praising the skills of the actors for making it work.
