First one is No Reservations.
No, not the Anthony Bourdain tv show (though that show kicks ass and is one of my favorites!).... the movie starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart.
Kate (Zeta-Jones) is the head/master chef at a busy, upper-crust NYC restaurant. She pretty much has things her way all the time. She is completely obsessive and particular about how everything is made and presented, and takes offense if someone thinks her dishes are something short of spectacular. Her life is her own. She is in control and has all the power in the kitchen she could possibly want. But is she happy in all the other aspects of her life?
When Kate's sister is killed in a car accident, she is suddenly the guardian of her 9 year old niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin, who does a superb job). Heartbroken and misplaced in her aunt's busy, all-consuming lifestyle, she is lost and quite gloomy.
When Kate takes a week or so off to try to get a handle on her new found parenting skills and lifestyle, her boss hires a new chef, Nick, (Eckhart) to deal with the overflow at the restaurant. Kate takes immediate offense to this and feels he is not only cramping her style but stealing her job.
Only after some random encounters between melancholy Zoe and the gregarious, cheerful Nick does Kate see the brighter side of being a family, and she steps down from her podium long enough to confront some real feelings of comfort and closeness.
Sure, it's predictible. And lighthearted. And maybe it's even fluff. But it's a nice way to spend a couple hours. Just a simple film that you don't have to really think about. And there are a few tissue-moments, I'm warning you.
Speaking of tissue moments: whoa.
P.S. I Love You is a real tear-jerker at times. I'm not giving too much away by saying the main character (Gerard Butler - yummy!) dies- I think they tell you that on the DVD box or in the movie trailer.
So there you have it. But he dies at the beginning of the film. The ensuing drama comes from flash backs and the interaction of two people who shared a wonderfully close relationship- one has moved on to that great tissue box in the sky, the other is left to deal with well... how to deal with that.
Holly (Hilary Swank) and Gerry (Butler - hard to believe his last film was 300) are a happily married couple who are faced with the most horrible of situations. He dies of cancer.
Thankfully, we are not forced to bawl our way through the first act of the movie. All the dying occurs offscreen. But the tears continue because Gerry, knowing the envitable is going to happen, writes Holly a series of letters that she discovers after his death. Letters to help her deal with his passing and the prospect of getting on with her own life.
Along the way we meet her mother (the great Kathy Bates), two best friends (witty Lisa Kudrow and underappreciated Gina Gershon), casual if not a bit loopy friend Daniel (a different side of Harry Connick Jr) and a possible love interest down the road (Jeffrey Dean Morgan - also pretty dreamy here)...
Holly tries to put her life back together and in a series of flashbacks we see how much influence Gerry has in this happening. It's also a fairly predictible and sometimes even mushy movie, but sometimes I just want to see the fairy tale, you know?
In any event, you won't waste time watching either of these films. They are both well acted and just plain entertaining. It's not splitting the atom, ok? Just a little romance. Couldn't we all use some of that?
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