GetOut Magazine

Kutcher, Peet get a little too real in flat romantic comedy
By CRAIG OUTHIER
Get Out

Never in “A Lot Like Love” do on-again, off-again lovers Oliver and Emily (played by Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet) say anything that could be construed as “too clever.” Apparently, director Nigel Cole (“Saving Grace”) would rather his co-stars sound like regular folks than, say, Jay Leno's gag writers.

Consequently, Oliver and Emily seem quite real. Quite real, and quite dull. For all its authenticity, “A Lot Like Love” is the sort of grinding, one-syllable comedy that reminds us that a dash of conversational artifice isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Oliver and Emily meet, as most of us do, by engaging in an anonymous act of lavatory sex on an airplane. Afterward, they spend a day in New York getting to know each other. Oliver, just out of college and eying the fledgling Internet market, swears that in sex — sorry, six — years, he'll have a wife and family, but only after he gets his “ducks in a line.” Emily, a profoundly untalented aspiring actress, corrects his metaphor and bets him $50 that he'll still be single and searching. They part ways, with no firm plans to talk again.

Over the next decade, the pair manage to reunite every few years, take nude pictures by moonlight and coach each other through heartbreak. Every time, at least one of them comes up with a perfectly practical reason not to start a real relationship. Oliver, sitting atop a fledgling Internet diaper empire, is busy with “the bean counters at Huggies.” Emily, now an aspiring photographer, is rooted to Los Angeles.

Screenwriter Colin Patrick Lynch — a journeyman actor with no previous writing credits — never flatters his characters. His script takes surprising turns, but only by virtue of the fact that he sidesteps the usual temptation to glamorize. At best, “Love” is a sober, tenderly felt romance about the perils of hooking your life to an outcome, or a bank account. “Marry now, proto-yuppie!” it seems to say.

Kutcher plays Oliver a bit too girlishly in the first segment, but is adequate overall. Peet (“The Whole Nine Yards”), once she sheds the mile-high-club attitude, gives a bright and charming performance. If only the co-stars had more opportunity to verbalize their romantic chemistry. In one all-too-typical scene, the kids amuse each other by comparing chewed-up wads of junk food.

Yeah, I know, we've all done it, but I seem to recall funnier scenes in “When Harry Met Sally.” Maybe the problem with “Love” is that it's too much like love.