Alliteration At It's Finest..."A Lot Like Love"

If it walks like a duck...

The Story:

Oliver (Ashton Kutcher) is flying to New York to visit his brother.  At the airport he spies Emily (Amanda Peet) and the two lock eyes for a bit, but nothing more.  On the plane, they bump into each other again... Then over the next seven years, the two come back into each other's lives, sometimes for some romance, sometimes just to have a shoulder to cry on.  Will the two realize what they have together is special, or are they fated to remain apart?

Hmm...

Running a Dot Com business sure can date a movie! :)

I never heard of this one before, but trying to find some romantic comedies to make up for all the action, drama and thriller movies that have come through recently, this one was running through the top of the Netflix pile, so here it is. 

It's already been 8 years since the movie came out, and since they deal with the previous 7 years leading up to 2004/5, the movie feels closer to 15-20 years old.

Nothing wrong with that, just realizing that the dot com revolution really dates a movie to a specific period of time.

Kutcher remains the goofball that he is, but he does seem to generate some nice chemistry with his co-star, and the movie is the better for it.

An interesting addition to the movie is Oliver's brother, Graham (Tyrone Giordano) who is deaf.  This is used to great comic relief in several parts of the movie, and it's neat to see Hollywood try something different in a family relationship like that.  Too often they seem to either make the siblings bitter and cynical or they opt to go the wise and gay route.  Rarely anything in between.  A deaf brother who gets along with his sibling and is happy and content in his life, yeah, that's like spotting a unicorn. :)

It did catch me off guard at first, because I looked away from the movie, and it went silent for a moment, and realized they were signing and putting up subtitles.  Otherwise, the brother was used to great effect throughout the rest of the movie.

The plot became contrived in a few instances, otherwise the movie had its heart in the right place, and it made for a pretty good viewing experience.

Of course, if you can't stand Ashton Kutcher, you'd be advised to steer clear.

: )

Final Grade: B-

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Good but not great, I doubt I would be seeking this one out anytime soon.  But if it was on cable as I'm surfing, it would be fine background noise.