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.     

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