Mark Reviews Movies: JUST MARRIED

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Review by Mark Dujsik

Well, here’s the first official mainstream release of 2003, and if the quality of the first movie of the year is inversely proportionate to the overall quality of the year as a whole, we’re off to a good start. One day I’ll do a study on that hypothesis. Until then, what we’re left with is an entirely substandard comedy of far-fetched errors in which a couple of young newlyweds runs around Europe screwing up wherever they can and possibly couldn’t. The gags are the stuff of many other movies, and the whole thing has an irritatingly saccharine sweet tone. The combination simply doesn’t work, as their exploits are played for cute funny not rowdy funny—and many other reasons too. The movie seems to want us to laugh at these characters in knowing recognition, but the things they do are the stuff of raucous sex comedies and harebrained situational comedies. To suggest to anyone can relate to what these two people experience in the course of the movie is to suggest that people aren’t human.

Tom (Ashton Kutcher) and Sarah (Brittany Murphy, who shows comic potential) have just returned from their honeymoon in Europe , and it obviously didn’t go too well. On their way out of the airport, they do little things to annoy each other, like Tom pushing a baggage cart into Sarah (note how Sarah is punished much more—mild misogyny is not a good way to start a comedy). Going their separate ways, a separation and probable divorce seem sure to follow. Sarah heads home to her rich, prominent family, and Tom heads off to his job on the radio as a late-night traffic reporter. As he sits there, he recalls the story of the fateful trip starting with how the couple met (Tom hit her in the face with a football—how much more must this poor girl suffer through the movie?). They move in together quickly, although Sarah’s dog is a general annoyance to Tom. The same day Tom accidentally causes the dog to leap from a window, resulting in the animal's death, the two become engaged. Tom, of course, keeps the whole thing a secret, and it’s not the only secret kept between the two of them.

Once the couple eventually heads off on their honeymoon, the movie meanders without any driving force. As obvious as it is, I wonder why the frustration of staying celibate on one’s honeymoon isn’t used properly. The movie thinks it’s the cause of most of the arguments, and yet, the weight of that situation is never really explored. The comedy, as a result, is timid and unenergetic. Even when the script places the couple in typical sex comedy situations, the scenarios and execution are decidedly tame. Thank the PG-13 rating and the fact that all of these couple’s adventures are supposed to be cute so that we can understand what a cute couple they make even when the toughest of circumstances slightly lessens their appearance of… cuteness. An overbearingly pleasant score plays under every scene, even the jokes, which simply don’t have any edge. Take the introduction of a sex toy. Before any joke can be made beyond the fact that it’s a sex toy (how utterly shocking!), it becomes the impetus for something completely unrelated when Tom’s attempt to charge it blows a circuit and leaves the entire hotel without power.

The script itself suffers from usual contrivances. The couple never once addresses anything worthwhile. It’s funny that the two never directly talk about the obvious hurdle that’s probably at the heart of their problems: their class barrier. Instead, the script throws in Peter (Christian Kane), an ex-boyfriend of Sarah’s, to add even more problems for the couple. Ironically, though, his inclusion leads to the best scene in the movie. Eventually, Sarah reveals an encounter between herself and Peter to Tom, who retaliates against Peter by chasing him around the hotel with a poker (the setup, I would rather not get into detail about). It’s the best scene in the movie, not because it’s funny, but because it takes male insecurity to such an extreme that it turns out rather disturbing and, I’m sure, unintentionally satirical. The resolution of such an intense marriage dilemma can only be solved, of course, by a character who’s only seen and mentioned once before. Tom’s father (a thankless role for Raymond J. Barry) suddenly appears near the end to give an inevitable speech about marriage only to disappear for the rest of the movie. Odd that he doesn’t address the indiscretions that caused the split in the first case. Sure, he tells how you get through the day-to-day of a marriage, but how do you repair something that was broken from the start?

Just Married thankfully saves us one predictable possibility: Tom’s story being heard on the radio, making him a big star, and getting him his own show, causing Sarah to realize that he really loves her and that she should go back to him. It saves us the specifics of that possibility, but it doesn’t save us the idea behind it. So we’re left with two things to ponder: Are they right for each other? Maybe. Does the movie make us care either way? Nope.

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