False advertising ‘Love, Guaranteed’ – enjoyment, not so much
From director Mark Steven Johnson (“Ghost Rider”) and the writing team of Hilary Galanoy and Elizabeth Hackett (“Falling Inn Love”) comes “Love, Guaranteed” and it’s no “Love Actually.” It’s not even close. It’s more like “Love, Contrived ” or “Witless in Seattle.”
Meet Susan Whitaker (Rachel Leigh Cook). She is a “civil litigator” and head of the struggling Seattle law firm Whitaker and Associates. Her associates are the artificially zany Roberto (Sean Amsing) and Pam (Lisa Durupt), who are so perky you fear they might break into little pieces. Singleton Susan has a fridge full of take-out leftovers, sips a glass of lonely white wine and has what must be a closet groaning under the strain of her many outfits.
Would you believe that salvation for Susan’s firm, and maybe for her, arrives in the form of former professional athlete-turned-physical therapist Nick Evans (a handsome and likable Damon Wayans Jr.). Nick wants to sue the billion-dollar dating website Love, Guaranteed because he hasn’t found love after almost 1,000 dates, and the site guaranteed he would.
In case you find this whole set-up ridiculous, not to mention that you know exactly where this film is headed, Nick plans to donate any proceeds from his suit to a children’s wing for the rehab center where he works with the elderly. The founder of Love, Guaranteed is pretentious “lifestyle guru” Tamara Taylor (Heather Graham), and if she bears any resemblance to Gwyneth Paltrow of Goop I’m sure it’s completely coincidental. In case you don’t dislike Little Miss Namaste Tamara enough, she abuses her female Asian assistant to nudge you along.
The forecast promises “rain, rain and more rain.” But it doesn’t rain that much, actually. Susan drives a rotting, orange Karmann Ghia (They leak; I know from experience). There is an audio tape stuck in the car’s obsolete player, and it plays Tiffany’s 1987 version of Tommy James and the Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now.” If that isn’t bad enough (and believe me it is), every time she shuts the driver’s side door the handle falls off. It’s a joke that never gets tired (I’m kidding; it does). In order to gaze into Susan’s eyes during one of their exchanges of canned banter, Wayans has to crane his neck because Cook is at least a foot shorter than him.
Cook and Wayans have a nice enough chemistry. But it’s not nice enough to compensate for the prefabricated dialogue, platitudes and cliches running around them like an army of evil elves throwing rocks. Susan tries using the Love, Guaranteed dating app herself for “research purposes only.” One of her dates is a guy who’s on a fast, so much so that he keeps passing out as he talks to her. It’s more creepy than funny, so, of course, he shows up again later. Yes, the humor is often tone-deaf.
Conveniently, Susan lives next door to her sister Pam (Claire Hesselgrave), who is married and pregnant and just about to give birth, giving “Love, Guaranteed” the coveted rush-to-the-hospital, the-baby-is-coming, OMG sequence. This sort of film once co-starred Doris Day and Rock Hudson. “Love” may be “Guaranteed.” But enjoyment and novelty are another thing entirely.