Matthew McConaughey Blunders Toward Independence in Failure to Launch

I have a mixed track record when it comes to movies starring Matthew McConaughey. Sometimes he’s great, as in his spirited turn as a coach who helps revive a tragedy-struck college football team in We Are Marshall. Sometimes, he makes me cringe, as I’m doing right now as I recall his role as a womanizing sleazebag in the lamentable Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. I feared that I might be veering closer to the latter with 2006’s Failure to Launch, but I decided to give the romantic comedy a try anyway.

Tripp (McConaughey) is a bit of a womanizer too, but at least he sticks to one girl at a time. The commitment-shy boat salesman feels like he’s got it made. Sweep the ladies off their feet, have a little fun with them, invite them home for some hanky-panky… and let them find out that his gorgeous residence actually belongs to his parents. Yes, he’s 35 and still living at home, and his dates all consider that a major turn-off – especially when Mom (Kathy Bates) or Dad (Terry Bradshaw) could poke a head in his bedroom at a most inopportune time. He seems quite content with this living arrangement, but his parents aren’t. They’re ready to be empty nesters. So they call in Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker) to help their little fledgling fly the coop.

Paula has built a lucrative career out of getting men like Tripp to fall for her, which motivates them to get on their feet and become independent. She’s got it down to a science, and Tripp is putty in her hands. Their courtship is going so well that she expects to have him out of his house in no time. The only catch? Tripp is not the only one falling in love. Paula has prided herself on her ability to maintain emotional distance; could Tripp’s surprising hold on her ruin his parents’ plan and her career? Will two hearts be broken before all is said and done?

I found the movie’s premise interesting. For a number of reasons, adult children living with their parents is increasingly common in America. There’s almost a presupposition here that no woman in her right mind would ever knowingly date a guy in such a situation, which seems to be overstating things a little. Then again, I may just feel defensive of these fellas since I live at home myself. (The movie also seems to imply that this is chiefly a male phenomenon, but I know several more women who live with their parents than men. Hmm… Do I smell a sequel?) Paula’s tactics seem very effective, though I would think that if she is the main factor in getting a man to leave his parents, there would be a serious chance of him running back to them after the relationship dissolves. In any case, she seems to be setting all these guys up for heartache.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t help finding Paula pretty likable, and I do get the sense that it’s not just about the money. She wants to encourage her unwitting clients to spread their wings a little. Meanwhile, Tripp is a loafer and a ladies’ man, which makes him rather annoying, but he’s also got a respectable job that suits him and a tender big brotherly relationship with a young man he refers to as his nephew. It’s through this boy that we and Paula best glimpse his softer side.

Tripp is aptly named, since he seems to have a special knack for taking pratfalls, particularly when wild creatures are involved, and his hapless buddies Ace (Justin Bartha) and Demo (Bradley Cooper) are the worst wingmen ever on these occasions. Paula’s pal Kit (Zooey Deschanel) is a bit more helpful, though she spends half the movie glowering over the racket made by a mockingbird plaguing the house she and Paula share. Despite her morose countenance, I found her one of the funniest characters and in some ways enjoyed the romantic subplot involving her more than the main one. Bates is funny too as the mom who smothers Tripp with affection but simultaneously wants him out of the house. For her, letting go is a struggle, while Bradshaw’s gruff manner as Tripp’s dad demonstrates that he would be more than happy to see his son venture off on his own.

On the whole, I found Failure to Launch a pretty engaging comedy and far from the worst McConaughey vehicle I’ve seen. It’s a bit silly at times, while at others it’s thought-provoking, prompting rumination over the reasons adults live with their parents and the issues involved in such an arrangement. Mostly, though, it’s just a light romance with a feel-good conclusion and some pretty good laughs along the way.

"Nothing Improves a Movie Like Low Expectations."

If you scroll through my movie reviews, you will likely notice that almost all of them bear a four- or five-star rating. There are two major reasons for this. The first is that I try to look for the good in things. I’m willing to overlook a lot of bad stuff if I ultimately enjoyed the movie more than I hated it. The other reason is that I rarely watch movies that I think I won’t like. Once in a while, though, I figure I might as well increase my credibility by going to a movie that I’m sure will earn a miserable review from me. So I didn’t complain much when my friend suggested going to see Wedding Crashers, a film I had pinned as one of the most disgusting of the summer. “But what if you like it?” my brother queried just before I left. “Well,” I replied, “I shall be very disappointed.”

Pile on the disappointment.

The film opens with John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) hard at work at their job, pretty much the only time this happens in the movie. Right off the bat it is easy to see that the two are good buddies. It also seems that their success in their career is based upon their immense capacity to irritate whoever they are advising. John hangs back a bit, only inserting occasional comments, but Jeremy talks with the speed of the Micro Machine Man, and each thing he says makes less sense than whatever came before. His motor-mouth tendencies come up several times in the film, causing several tirades that are somewhat amusing but more obnoxious. His frenetic energy makes him the more annoying of the two, though I’ve yet to see a movie in which I don’t find Wilson irritating. It’s harder to pinpoint just why, but I think it has to do with an overall aura of ditziness. Actually, for the most part he came across more intelligently here than he usually does, and there was an undeniable sweetness to his character. And while I didn’t like Vaughn’s character much, I had to admire his loyalty and feel sorry for him when John was too head over heels to be sensitive to his friend’s needs.

The premise of two guys crashing weddings in order to hook up with vulnerable young women is a pretty crude one, but the extensive montage scene showing how they achieve those goals is amusing and ingenious without being offensive, at least until the last minute or so. This is where the men’s real talents come to the forefront, and they manage to ingratiate themselves to a wide variety of guests, becoming the life of the party whether the wedding is Jewish, Indian or Greek. They show such congeniality, restraint and charisma during these receptions, it’s a shame such talents are reserved for ultimately unscrupulous activities. I couldn’t help but think of all the great things they could be doing if they focused their skills more appropriately.

The real conflict begins after the exhausting but exhilarating summer wedding season is over and they are settling back into a more relaxed lifestyle. But the wedding of prominent Secretary Cleary’s (Christopher Walken) daughter draws them out of their off-season leisure, and the high stakes and change of pace seem to impinge upon their decorum, at least at the wedding. Their barely whispered discussions in the church pew are jarring and most unseemly for the setting, though I couldn’t help but be amused by their wager over which biblical lesson the bride’s sister would read. The movie as a whole makes some interesting observations about the traditions involved in weddings – and the frequent insincerity of the guests. There’s a certain cynicism to it, but at the same time you walk out of the movie with the feeling that marriage is an institution to be respected.

John and Jeremy both lay eyes early on their quarry. Both make a connection by the reception. Jeremy achieves his ultimate goal but finds his plan has backfired. Gloria (Isla Fisher), sister of the bride, is smitten with him – is in fact obsessed with him to a psychotic degree. Worse, he cannot beat a hasty retreat because John has forged an emotional bond with Claire (Rachel McAdams), also a sister of the bride, and he wants some extra time to get to know her better. She has ceased to become one-night stand material; John, perhaps for the first time in his life, is in love. What follows is a weekend with the rather deranged family in which John sneaks in as much time with Claire as he can, Jeremy endures any number of dangerous and uncomfortable situations in the name of not abandoning his friend, and Claire’s boyfriend Sack (Bradley Cooper) hires a detective to see what these two newcomers are up to.

Probably my favorite character in the whole shebang is Secretary Clearly. Walken has a knack for creating compelling supporting characters, and he makes the senator a consummate politician and sportsman, but above all a completely devoted father. His scenes with McAdams are especially touching. He’s stuck with a tipsy wife (Jane Seymour) who confides that she has been unfaithful to him for most of their marriage. She seems severely unbalanced and spends most of her on-screen time trying to seduce John. Perhaps even more disturbing is Grandma Mary (Ellen Albertini Dow, as vitriolic here as she was sweet in The Wedding Singer), who is uncouth and vocally homophobic and, as my friend pointed out, really could have been excised from the film entirely with no detriment to the plot. They probably could have done away with Todd (Keir O’Donnell), the brooding black sheep of the Cleary family, altogether. He is a leering, unkempt presence, and though I initially wanted to feel sorry for this unappreciated artist, he was too surly and downright creepy to win points from me. His main purpose, I guess, is to make Jeremy also suffer through seduction from a most unwelcome family member, but he has to put up with so much anyway, this seems most unnecessary. Rounding out the loony bin is Sack, who’s a stereotypical svelte, controlling jerk who takes his girlfriend for granted but sees red if he thinks anyone else might have his eye on her. His cocky attitude and constant bullying make him a guy it’s easy to love to hate.

For the most part, I found Gloria to be utterly obnoxious, but I guess that’s okay because I felt the same way about Jeremy. The two are suited to one another. Claire is an entirely different story. This is McAdams at the most likable I’ve seen her. Too manipulative in Mean Girls, too volatile in The Notebook, here she is just a sweet, idealistic girl who loves her dad and is stuck with a major bummer of a boyfriend who the whole family seems to love. She thinks she loves him, but the more she sees of his vicious behavior towards the two mysterious guests the less sure she is. Cut out all of the gross-out trappings, and Wilson and McAdams create a surprisingly tender romantic comedy.

I had heard enough about this film beforehand that I expected non-stop opportunities for me to wave a hefty bag of popcorn in front of my face in order to shield my eyes from the depravities occurring on screen. What I got was long stretches of film that were hardly offensive at all, with a few extremely tasteless scenes thrown in so the group of guys roaring in the back row of the theater wouldn’t feel as though they had wasted their money. If TBS got its hands on this, strategically removing the most blatantly low-brow parts and smoothing over the raunchy language, it would probably be a perfectly appropriate film. Granted, if I hadn’t been so sure I would hate it, I probably wouldn’t have liked it as much. But however I got there, I arrived at the conclusion that Wedding Crashers is actually a decent movie. Sorry, Epinions, looks like it’s going to be another high rating from bilbopooh.