TMG Scale 3.0 P Factor 0.0 MPAA Rating: R
Starring Anna Faris, Chris Evans, Blythe Danner, Ed Begley Jr.
This film is not about trying to pick your favorite sleep number on a bed mattress. Or is it? IMDb and lots of newspapers spin this film this way: “A woman looks back at the past twenty men she’s had relationships with in her life and wonders if one of them might be her one true love.” That’s a bunch of BS. A T-shirt worn early in the film billboards the slogan “Save the F…ing Earth.” Maybe that was an early sign to this film’s true story. It certainly foreshadowed its lack of sensitivity and class.
Faris plays a twenty something (“sex bunny”?) and struggling marketing executive named Ally Darling (Oh, come on with the name!) who suddenly realizes she is unmarried and has had actual sex with nineteen men. And we are not talking about Bill Clinton non-sex, sex here. A magazine article that says the average woman has only 10.5 such connections, and after twenty, a woman is not likely to ever marry. He younger sister gets engaged and plans her wedding while Ally tries to avoid number 20. So she has sex with her jerk, ex-boss. That makes sense for sure. Now her challenge is to go back, find and either marry one of the prior 19, or establish they never really “had sex” (in the Clinton presidential definition) and keep her under the ignoble 20.
Way too early, the film telegraphs that the guy next door named Colin (Evans) will end up with Ally. Since Colin has a bigger sleep number every night and is the son of a cop, Ally employs him to find all her former sex partners (TMG refuses to use the euphemism “lovers” or “relationships”) to see if any have now evolved to suitable potential husbands. None of course have. One is gay, several are married and several are super dweebs. The only funny and original scene is the guy who is now a gynecologist—but that scene was given away in the trailer. A dinner scene at an elegant restaurant where her hair weave catches fire was beyond stupid. Her sister’s upcoming wedding and relationship is just a distraction and does not weave into this movie at all.
My real problem with this film is it makes younger people out to be so crass and classless. I really wondered when Adam Sandler was going to show up in this pathetically juvenile film. Do women really spend this much time talking with each other about their vagina? I really doubt it. Has the twenty something set really traded a wonderful and exciting and emotion filled dance between men and women down to a game of baseball? The movie treats human relationships and sex like a joke.
Even the playful game of basketball strip “H-O-R-S-E” in the Boston Garden was not cute for me. I tried this once on my parents driveway and it failed big time. (My wife got mad and hit me inconveniently with the ball) Would any girl really entertain such a notion with a guy she is not even dating…or even a guy she is dating? Let alone under the full lights at a major city arena? Good luck guys!
What were the good messages in this film? Few and far between. I buy the idea that life is not a game of numbers. There is some subtle message that you have to live your own life and perhaps true love might just be right next door. I would even go as far as to say there is some suggestion that life is about finding your soulmate and not your sexmate. Sex can be had between any two humans. Love and life goes way beyond that. So, some good messages are in this film, but unfortunately they get dragged down in the muck. Worst is a senseless scene of little kids at the wedding hearing the F word and then repeating it over and over as they run through the crowd. Why? Is the point to desensitize kids early and often that sex and human relations is just a silly word? You got me.
What’s your number? I don’t know and don’t care is the only point. The basic plot and idea was sound. The execution of the story was pathetic. At least it had a 0.0 P Factor and I give it some credit for that.