Just Married (2003)
This is the story of two newly weds, Sarah (Brittany Murphy) and Tom (Ashton Kutcher) going on their honeymoon in Europe. Of course it’s isn’t long before their relationship is put to barrage of tests include Sarah’s ex-boyfriend to Tom’s obsession with sports, all topped by everyone around them saying their too young to be married.
The story begins with Tom and Sarah returning from their less than successful honeymoon. Sarah returns to her mansion and Tom goes to back to his apartment and to work that night. Both of the characters are upset in their own way, Sarah cries and Tom tells his story to the DJ at the radio station were he works. A flashback now occurs, when in the ten-minute breaks between traffic reports, Tom tells his entire story to the DJ.
Tom’s flashback start when his first met Sarah, while playing American football on the beach. From there they hit it of right away. About nine months down the lines Tom asks Sarah to marry him, not before doing something to her dog, which I’ll leave as a surprise. The marriage goes off with out a hitch and their honeymoon beings.
Right from the beginning you know there going to be trouble, and not just because it being told to you and you know how it’s going to end. But because Sarah and Tom’s problems range from getting kicked out of there first hotel, sleeping in a snowball, losing their ‘compact’, and the constant interference by one of Sarah’s old boy friend, Peter (Christian Kane).
The plot as a whole is pretty solid, no plot holes, no unanswered questions, at least nothing you can’t guest at and only the set up of this movie bugged me. What I mean is I’ve never been a fan of movies were a character is telling a story about themselves, it can ruin it some times, but luckily this isn’t one of those times.
In the way of twist in this story there are no major ones that I found, little one’s here and there, but if you’ve seen any kind of romantic comedy before then you’ll would of be able to predict most of them. A say most of them because I didn’t see how they were going to lose there car, that was a great part.
The greatest strength of the plot is also its greatest weakness and that is because you know it’s going to have a happy ending. And this isn’t because the story is told to you, it’s because a sad ending after all the build up, it would probably kill who ever watched, at least in the emotional sense. I stand by what I said though, a happy ending is very important, I know it doesn’t exactly challenge system of how movies are done these days, but there isn’t everything wrong with that.
The two main characters in this story of love and comedy are Tom Leezak is a late night radio traffic reporter whose good looks, blue collar lifestyle and unrelenting passion for sports makes him the ultimate alpha-male. Throughout the entire movie Tom is attempts to live up to the expectation put on him by Sarah’s father (David Rasche) and Sister (Monet Mazur), though he is unsuccessful.
Well Sarah McNerney is a beautiful, free-spirited writer whose family is as wealthy as it is snobbish. Luckily for Tom, Sarah’s ignores her family and following her heart and marries her knight in rusty armour.
The supporting characters in this film consist of Peter the
wealthy ex-boyfriend, which just happens to turn up in
Tom’s family on the other hand has only his father, Mr
Leezak (Raymond Barry), who has a good understanding of his son’s honeymoon
problems, having had an interesting honeymoon with his own wife.
The Music is this film isn’t actually orchestral goodness in the style of the Matrix and Don Davis, though what there suits the film perfectly. All of it’s well timed and fits in to place flawlessly, which is what you’d expect from a big screen film.
This is usually where I would talk about the special effects, but I couldn’t see any in this film. Though there was some stunt work, not much but it’s there. The best example is when Tom got tackled really had by one of Sarah’s relatives. It was great work by the stunt man.
Overall this is a really good film, its only let down is that its plot is a little to predictable, though in it’s defence you probably would have been able to guess that they would of split up at the end of the honeymoon if it hadn’t of been set up like they had.
Final Score
8/10