Now here’s another movie that probably suffered at the box office as a result of remarkably poor marketing. Sold as a rom-com of the first and fluffiest order, the No Reservations trailer would have you believe that you’re watching a silly, chirpy very typical chick flick. Catherine Zeta-Jones as a domineering, job-obsessed chef and Aaron Eckhart as the flamboyant, opera-singing sous-chef who forces her to make room for him in her life, her job and (finally, inevitably) her heart? Yup, sure sounds cheesy and meet-cute enough for a brainless night out at the movies!
Well, surprisingly enough, that’s really not what you’re getting here – NR is only ostensibly a romantic comedy. Sure, there are laughs to be had when the compulsively controlling Kate (Zeta-Jones) is forced to go to therapy by her worried boss Paula (Patricia Clarkson), and all Kate can do during her weekly sessions is share recipes and feed her psychiatrist with her latest creation. But, more often than not, it’s these moments that, though funny, feel a bit forced. The real story is about Kate discovering that, even though life is every bit as complicated and difficult to control as she’s always suspected it is, the emotional risks necessary to really live it all are very much worth the effort. This epiphany takes a whole lot of hard work, coming as it does in the form of her niece Zoe (Abigail Breslin), who suddenly becomes an orphan en route to visiting her aunt in the Big City. As Kate fumbles in her new responsibilities as a mom, she also has to grapple with Paula’s increasing reliance on Nick at the restaurant.
Now, whether or not this rather serious-minded approach still disappoints is the question – there are, for example, people who felt that the film was too draggy and indeed it is. It runs only at 105 minutes, but feels rather longer than that. There are also secondary characters introduced that never really blossom into life, such as Kate’s co-workers, original sous-chef Leah (Jenny Wade), whose pregnancy leads to Nick’s hiring or the quirky, flighty waitress Bernadette (Lily Rabe). Both are quickly forgotten, while downstairs neighbour Sean (Brian F O’Byrne) barely gets a look-in – he’s only there to prove the point that Kate has succeeded in shutting people out of her life and to drive home the fact that Nick is the person she’s willing to let in. And of course, NR is not entirely to blame for its tag as a rom-com: frequently, the film feels like a traditional fluffy film, mostly when we see Kate falling for or flirting outrageously with Nick (and vice versa), grafted onto an entirely different, more introspective beast (as Kate struggles with being a mom and somehow always disappointing Zoe). Sometimes, the two even meet halfway and result in a scene that, awkwardly, fits in nowhere: when Kate and Zoe finally bond through skipping work/school for a pillow fight, they collapse giggling in Kate’s hallway, the feathers from their battle float around their heads in slow motion. Slow motion in a movie like this is seldom good, y’all. It means the director (in this case, Scott Hicks) is telling you that this is a scene Worth Paying Attention To.
All that being said (and it sure is making me re-evaluate my generally benign reaction to the film), NR is an enjoyable watch. The issues are addressed in a more adult way than you’d expect: Kate worries about social services taking Zoe away, Kate and Zoe lash out at each other in hurt and disappointment and anger, Zoe runs away. Tellingly, much as Nick features in waking Kate up to the idea that there are many ways to live her life and raise a child (it’s him who first connects to Zoe), the real meat of the film is in Kate’s attempt to connect to Zoe herself. It’s all very real: she frets about Zoe refusing to eat the haute cuisine she makes, she cries in the solitude of the restaurant freezer for her dead sister, she forgets to pick Zoe up after school (for a legitimate reason, but still). Zoe could easily have been played as a curly-haired moppet in the Shirley Temple tradition, and certainly Breslin could pull that off if the script required it. But the script makes full use of the fact that Breslin is, at the tender age of 11, already quite the accomplished thespian – they allow her to develop Zoe into a real, believable child, who cries and throws temper tantrums and yet has the uncanny ability to look right through Kate and get her the way kids sometimes do.
The lead actors also do a commendable job in sticking to the script and their characters, even when one or the other lets them down. Zeta-Jones plays haughty wonderfully, but is also skilled enough to allow Kate’s polished veneer of hardness to crack just a little. She’s almost too frosty, at times, but is well matched by Eckhart’s exuberance and charm. A character actor who’s suddenly everywhere (I don’t recall noticing him or having heard of him much before last year, especially after he created a sensation in minor indie hit Thank You For Smoking), Eckhart proves he has the looks and charisma to make it as a rom-com lead, if he so chooses. There’ve been complaints that, in NR‘s transition from original German film Bella Martha, Nick’s penchant for bursting into an Italian aria or two is strange rather than quirkily adorable. But I personally feel that Eckhart’s performance so overflows with warmth that he just about manages to make it work.
Yes, there’s certainly reason to denounce NR as an unhappy marriage between a chick flick and a family melodrama. Parts of the film are creaky, poorly scripted, or just plain awkward. But there’s also enough meat and genuine feeling underpinning the whole enterprise – Kate bumbling into life not just because of a man, but also a child whose emotional needs must necessarily come before her own – to make it a worthy, if still flawed, watch.
shawneofthedead 