6/10
No one could be more surprised than I am to find myself allocating this to the 'Good' section. I was expecting to slag it off as a routine rom com, so imagine my surprise when I got emotionally involved.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is a married mother of two, who discovers her husband's infidelity within a few minutes of the beginning of the film, and is off to the big city with kids in tow before you can say "What's that doing in her mouth?" She has no job and nowhere to live, but she's a go getting, gym-toned kind of a woman, and she finds an apartment above a coffee shop and a job on a sports network TV station. There's this guy (Justin Bartha) who works in the coffee shop, and he ends up looking after the kids as her job gets more demanding, and she tries the dating game. But the thing is, that Sandy and Aram (the names of the two main characters) seem to enjoy being with each other best of all. The fact that he's 25 and she's 40 may or may not be a problem.
I have never been a fan of Catherine Zeta-Jones and I didn't expect this film to change my mind, but isn't it great to have your prejudices uprooted and flung aside. I'm not saying that she deserves an Oscar, but in a role that would have been murdered by J Lo, she creates a ikeable and almost believable character. And the success of the film is also greatly assisted by Justin Bartha as Aram, a role that has so many potential pitfalls, that it should be surrounded by warning signs and bollards. But he pulls it off. He's young, cute and endearing and by the time that he and C Z-J get it on, I was rooting for them.
Director Bart Freundlich is smarter than your average rom com film maker, and avoids some of the crasser mistakes of his peers. Even the kids, who could have been obnoxiously precocious are rather winningly precocious. You may think I've gone soft in the head and should be institutionalised but I can only say it as I see it, and this one I liked.
