She's the one
Cunningly timed to be released on Valentine’s Day, She’s the One, is the story of the ‘fighting Fitzpatricks’, an Irish-American family of men wrestling with infidelity and their muddled philosophies on life and love. Mickey (Edward Burns) is content to be a lay-about, care-free bachelor until one day he picks up Hope (Maxine Bahns) in his cab and within 24 hours they are married. His older brother, Francis (Mike McGlone) is a successful Wall Street stockbroker, married to his college sweetheart Renee (Jennifer Anniston) but is having an affair with Mickey’s ex-fiancee Heather (Cameron Diaz). Both of them are in their own way trying to follow their father’s (John Mahoney) misguided advice to ‘do what makes you happy first’, but this only leads them to clash more than once especially when Mickey finds out about Francis and Heather. Neither of the brothers believes that the other can be happy. Francis doesn’t understand how being Mickey can be content to be decent yet poor, while Mickey can’t understand how being mean and self-absorbed but rich is the route to happiness either.
Although very similar to Edward Burns’ first film except on a slightly larger budget, he has fortunately managed to maintain much of the charm and wit which made his debut so enjoyable. By keeping the budget low (by Hollywood standards) and by writing, directing and starring Burns has managed to keep his autonomy to make the film he wants. Although there is nothing especially original in his writing per se, the intelligence and wit of writing nevertheless comes as a welcome change to much of the brainless idioticism of much of Hollywood’s fare. Fortunately Burns, like Woody Allen is a New Yorker and consequently the humour is considerably sharper and more intelligent than the Dumb and Dumber school. However, much of the humour comes from the characters reactions to the situations in which they find themselves and these scenarios tend to come across as a bit contrived at times. For starters, who would want to have an affair if they were married to Jennifer Anniston? This also gives the feeling that the film moves from scene to scene without the characters developing in between.
Despite the bigger names of Diaz, Anniston and Mahoney they manage to blend seamlessly into Burns’ world and they let the three leads from Burns’ first picture (Bahns, McGlone and Burns himself) take much of glory.
Therefore, She’s the One is an enjoyable, intelligent film which deserves to be noticed even if it is nothing more than a light-weight romantic comedy. spooky
