The Accidental Husband 2008 (Movie Review)

Dir: Griffin Dunne
Starring: Uma Thurman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Colin Firth
Dur: 1 hr 30 mins
Genre: RomCom
Rating: 1.5/5
PG: One expletive, few kisses and a make-out scene that is not explicit.

We are all looking for love and most of us still hold on, sometimes obstinately to the love we find in fairy tales. We’re in search of or passively waiting for our Prince or Princess Charming to come along and sweep us into I-don’t-know-where land. The Accidental Husband hits out at this dreamy kind of love and forces us to get into the not so pleasant task of searching for the hitherto indefinable, ‘Real Love’.

Dr Emma Lloyd (Uma Thurman) is a self-proclaimed love expert, dishing out free advice to people over her radio show, (mostly women, not surprisingly) on how to get over their love troubles and find true love. She’s convinced she has struck truth and has committed herself to share her convictions with other needy women. She and her show are catapulted to fame until one jilted man decides to give her a taste of her own medicine. Patrick Sullivan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) was on the verge of marriage until his fiancé acted on Lloyd’s advice and broke it off. He gets his young neighbour and tech-genius, Ajay, to enter into the Government system and enter Lloyd as his wife. Lloyd and her fiancé, Robert (Colin Firth) are nearing the day of their marriage and are surprised to find that the official document shows Lloyd’s status as married. Lloyd sets out in search of her so-called husband and tumbles into a world where love isn’t as she thought it out to be. She is pushed, shaken, thrown and broken (metaphorically, of course) to breaking point. She finds herself fighting a losing battle and is forced to come to terms with her inner feelings.


The Accidental Husband walks on a familiar track. It appears hasty and dissected. It’s taking us toward the goal, i.e. True Love, but on means that aren’t in keeping with true love (maybe I’m giving it a Christian look?). I found it a bore. If you like the idea of the film, I would suggest you watch The Ugly Truth, for a better and stronger portrayal. Colin Firth was the only stand-out performer. The rest were mediocre. The message though came through clear: Love is not an analytical reality and has no fixed laws. It flows with the tide of each one’s personality, likes and dislikes, and is rarely ever the same for any and every one of us.     

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent
Read more

The Challenge of Mercy

Image
Pope Francis has declared this as the year of mercy, and up until now plenty of reflections have been preached and published on mercy. Perhaps each of us too have made our own reflection on the theme of mercy. Since the inauguration of the year, my mind has often reverted to this theme. Every night when I make an examination of conscience, I evaluate myself: my thoughts, words and deeds vis-à-vis mercy. I realize that I am not merciful most of the time and that I resort to do what benefits me over the merciful thing. Pope Francis realized that the Church needed to revisit the theme of mercy; to reflect upon it and put it into practice. Mercy is at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus is the personified revelator of the Father’s mercy. Through his words and deeds he suffused the scent of mercy. His teachings on mercy are appreciated and continue to inspire people even today. The Church itself was founded on mercy: Christ became the expiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10; Heb 2:17). He for
Read more

My Intellectual Life at Divyadaan

Image
This was an essay I penned for the final exam of English in Divyadaan. Read on… Divyadaan is a place that stands on the two pillars of study and prayer. The aim of the place is to sharpen and develop the fertile minds of the young seminarians, Salesians in particular. The journey to Divyadaan is pretty much pre-established for the Salesians belonging to the Mumbai and Panjim provinces. I belong to the Panjim province and so had no choice but to move here after completing the novitiate. I remember asking my Rector when I was in the aspirantate, the purpose of these three years of study post-novitiate. He told me that it’s a time to broaden my outlook, sharpen my intellect, develop critical abilities and expose myself to new experiences. Looking back on these three years I’ve spent here in Divyadaan, I feel that all those things my Rector told me should happen have happened. I have broadened my outlook by being exposed to a diversity of philosophers and philosophies; I’ve kept
Read more