Jason Lee, Selma Blair, Julia Stiles, Ian Gomez, Thomas Lenon, Julie Hagerty, directed by Chris Koch
Julia Stiles really shines, she's so giddy and carefree that set among the conformity of everyone else, she just glows and the whole audience falls in love with her along with Lee. The rest of the cast, of course, Lee's testosterone-filled coworkers, his elegant mother-in-law, his fratlike friend Jim and his bride-to-be all do an excellent job of fitting into stereotypes of conformity and boringness that make Stiles stand out in the first place.
Lee doesn't live up to his costars, i don't think, but you could view that as more that they're hard to live up to. As far as I know, this is his first leading role in a major film so it might take a while to make that transition from being a character actor.
Despite a bit of slowness and a few jokes that don't come off as funny as the writer's intended, I found the film to be pretty intelligent and witty. The themes of conformity and "taking the safe route" seemed to cleverly align on several layers. There was the whole motiff of how he would imagine scenarios but would never act on them until the last scene, or how he was listening to a radio program on the highway talking about how everyone conforms, or the polarizing of the two leading ladies, one being the safe choice, and the other the risk. I know that might sound like a corny and recycled theme, but I disagree. I think more than we care to admit, many of us make major life decisions based on what was convenient or did something just to not upset those around us. This movie touches on that, pretty well.
The other good thing about the movie was that it was kind of a screwball comedy in which Jason Lee has to keep lying his way through the movie and who through dumb luck (example: the pharmacy guy turning out to be a good chef) and some cleverness on his part gets away with it for the most part.