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Michelle Pfeiffer stars as the efficient architect called Melanie. She has a young son, Sammy (Alex D Linz) who is probably meant to be about five; he behaves as if rather younger, although the actor, I gather, was about seven. He’s a likeable child who is constantly active and curious, getting into trouble one way or another regularly.
We learn from an early conversation that Sammy adores his father, who doesn’t live with them any more; he desperately hopes that his father will make it to a soccer game he’ll be playing in later that day. And Sammy is also looking forward to his school field trip on a boat. Melanie is ready to leave; all she has to do is collect Maggie (Mae Whitman) one of Sammy’s classmates, whom she takes to school.
The action then switches to a small apartment where Maggie’s father Jack (George Clooney) lives on his own. It’s clear that he’s rather disorganised and can be child-like and silly at times. A knock on the door heralds his ex-wife and her new husband with Maggie, whom they’re leaving with him for the next week. He doesn’t seem to be aware that this is going to happen, nor does he have any clue about her schedule.
He listens with half a mind to his ex-wife’s instructions and takes a sheaf of papers… then spends some time eating junk food and playing with Maggie, unaware until she mentions it that she should be in school going on a boat trip. And he hasn’t remembered to let Melanie know that he will be taking Maggie to school himself.
Inevitably both children are too late for the boat trip; equally inevitably the parents get thrown together although Melanie is very antagonistic towards Jack. It is, after all, his fault that the children have missed their trip. And she has no idea what to do with Sammy during some important work meetings…
The scene is set for an amusing day, which we see alternately from Melanie and Jack’s viewpoints. Sammy has a tendency to put objects up his nose, while Maggie is passionate about cats, and will forget everything else if she sees one and decides to follow it. The child actors do at least as well as their adult co-stars, and I was particularly taken with Sammy. Having the children as such a big part of the film brings it out of the ordinary, and we both enjoyed it very much.
There’s plenty of mild humour; we didn’t laugh aloud, but I smiled several times. There’s some choreographed slapstick type humour which slightly made me wince, but it was well enough done that it was amusing too. The pace is excellent, the conversation believable, and if the outcome is somewhat inevitable, that wasn’t a problem.
The film is refreshingly free of ‘strong’ language, with only the mildest of profanities. It’s also free of anything violent or overtly sexual. There are quite a few risque references here and there, but nothing major. The rating of PG seems about right; parents have different opinions about what children can be exposed to and children vary in their understanding. I doubt if this would be of any interest to a young child anyway, despite the young actors.
Definitely recommended if you want a light evening’s viewing that actually is a romantic comedy, even if the humour is mostly fairly understated.
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