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(About Our Ads) "RUMOR HAS IT..." (2005) (Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner) (PG-13) Alcohol/ Drugs Blood/Gore Disrespectful/ Bad Attitude Frightening/ Tense Scenes Guns/ Weapons Heavy Minor Heavy Minor *None Imitative Behavior Jump Scenes Music (Scary/Tense) Music (Inappropriate) Profanity Mild None None None Moderate Sex/ Nudity Smoking Tense Family Scenes Topics To Talk About Violence Heavy Moderate Mild Moderate Minor QUICK TAKE: Romantic Comedy: A woman tries to figure out if her family -- specifically her mom, grandmother and the man both knew -- was the model for the movie "The Graduate." PLOT: It's 1997 and Sarah Huttinger (JENNIFER ANISTON) is flying back home to Pasadena with her newly engaged fiancé, lawyer Jeff Daly (MARK RUFFALO), to attend the wedding of her younger sister Annie (MENA SUVARI) to her fiancé Scott (STEVE SANDVOSS). Sarah doesn't want to upstage the wedding by announcing her engagement to anyone, including her widowed father Earl (RICHARD JENKINS), but Jeff senses her getting a case of cold feet. That seems to run in the family as rumor has it that her late mother did the same thing decades ago when she ran off for Cabo and had a fling with Beau Burroughs (KEVIN COSTNER), who also reportedly slept with Sarah's grandmother, Katharine Richelieu (SHIRLEY MacLAINE). Upon learning this and having heard speculative gossip in the wealthy enclave, Sarah suddenly realizes her family may have been the model for the book "The Graduate" and the subsequent movie version of that. Suddenly obsessed with that notion and needing to figure out her life and whether Beau might actually be her biological father, Sarah doesn't return with Jeff to New York. Instead, she heads for San Francisco to track down Beau and find out the truth, unaware of the ramifications of doing so. WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT? Older teens may want to, as might fans of anyone in the cast, but others probably won't. WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: PG-13 For mature thematic material, sexual content, crude humor and a drug reference. CAST AS ROLE MODELS: JENNIFER ANISTON plays a newspaper column writer who has cold feet about marrying Jeff, especially after she becomes obsessed with trying to figure out if her family (to which she feels little connection) was the source for the book and movie "The Graduate." She ends up tracking down Beau, gets drunk and then sleeps with him. KEVIN COSTNER plays a wealthy Internet entrepreneur who beds Sarah after previously doing the same with her mother and grandmother (when they were younger). He also drinks. SHIRLEY MacLAINE plays Sarah's feisty grandmother who smokes, drinks, cusses and was the model for the Anne Bancroft character in "The Graduate" who slept with Beau. MARK RUFFALO plays Sarah's fiancé, a lawyer who becomes concerned about her cold feet regarding their engagement and then is mad at her for sleeping with Beau. RICHARD JENKINS plays Sarah's conservative father. MENA SUVARI plays Sarah's bubbly younger sister who gets married and then has a brief anxiety attack regarding that. STEVE SANDVOSS plays her fiancé and then husband who tries to support her. CAST, CREW, & TECHNICAL INFO HOW OTHERS RATED THIS MOVIE Curious if this title is entertaining, any good, and/or has any artistic merit? Then read OUR TAKE of this film. (Note: The "Our Take" review of this title examines the film's artistic merits and does not take into account any of the possibly objectionable material listed below). OUR WORD TO PARENTS: The following is a brief summary of the content found in this romantic comedy that's been rated PG-13. Profanity consists of at least 3 "s" words and a few slang terms for sex and male genitals, while other expletives and colorful phrases are uttered. (and some language could be construed as crude humor). Sexually related dialogue is present, off-screen sex occurs and a couple tries to have sex in an airplane bathroom (no nudity and just some fumbling about). There's talk of affairs in the past and pre-marriage pregnancies, while varying amounts of cleavage are seen. Various characters smoke and/or drink, some to the point of inebriation (leading to an engaged woman sleeping with another man), while a man admits to doing lots of drugs in the past. Some sisters talk about their long-dead mother (with one feeling that she doesn't fit in with the rest of her family), while an engaged couple nearly breaks up after the woman sleeps with another man. Thematic elements include pre-marital pregnancy, briefly implied incest, anxiety attacks, sterility and more. Various characters have varying degrees of bad attitudes, there's some brief physical contact between characters, some potentially imitative behavior is present, and a scene briefly depicts some mild turbulence inside a plane. Should you still be concerned about the film's appropriateness for yourself or anyone else in your home, you may want to look more closely at our detailed listings for more specific information regarding the film's content. For those prone to visually induced motion sickness, there is some handheld camera movement from time to time in the film. ALCOHOL OR DRUG USE Various women have drinks. People have drinks at a reception. Sarah orders a vodka on the rocks, followed by Katharine having the same thing. Katharine says they should talk after dinner when they'll be drunk. About her late husband, Katharine says "God bless his pickled soul." There are champagne toasts at a rehearsal dinner. About marriage, Katharine says to drink up as it will make it (the marriage) go a lot faster. Sarah visits her aunt who carries two Bloody Mary drinks while singing "Bloody Mary is the girl I love." After some talking, she goes to get more, but Sarah says he's driving. Miscellaneous people have drinks at a reception where Beau and Sarah also have drinks, with Beau then having more. Miscellaneous people have beer. Recounting his past, Beau admits that he did an enormous amount of drugs. Sarah and Beau share a pitcher of beer and she seems intoxicated. That state is a contributing factor of her later sleeping with him. Sarah finds Beau doing a yoga-type move of standing on his head, saying that it's a good hangover remedy (Sarah goes the more traditional route with aspirin or the like). Miscellaneous people drink at a ball where Beau has wine with Sarah. She then has more wine when he's called away for business. Seeing that Sarah is upset, Katharine tells her to come in, saying "I'll put on a pot of bourbon." People have champagne at a wedding. BLOOD/GORE We're guessing that the "crude humor" listed by the MPAA as one of the reasons for its PG-13 rating includes repeated references to "blunt testicular trauma" that Beau suffered in the past. Sarah announces to Beau that she has to pee, while there's also a line from Katharine where she tells Beau to "sh*t in his shoes." DISRESPECTFUL/BAD ATTITUDE Some women gossip about another woman having a homosexual son. Sarah says that some guy in the past said she had a "face like a butt." Katharine knowingly breaks the rule about no smoking in the house by doing just that. Katharine says that her daughter also had cold feet before her wedding (and thus ran off to Cabo where she had a fling with Beau). Sarah comments on a woman having "back cleavage" (folds of skin in a backless dress). Sarah sleeps with Beau (thus cheating on Jeff), while Beau sleeps with her (having previously slept with her mother and grandmother). Repeating something that happened in the past, Earl jokingly acts like he's going to kick Beau in the crotch, with Katharine then walking away holding her hand over her own crotch in a mocking fashion toward Beau. FRIGHTENING SCENES For those nervous about flying, there's some brief turbulence in the plane in which Sarah, Jeff and others are flying. GUNS/WEAPONS None, but Sarah tells Jeff not to bring up guns, civil rights or Vietnam with her dad upon first meeting him. IMITATIVE BEHAVIOR Phrases: "Full of sh*t," "Go sh*t in your shoes," "Go play with your d*ck," "Face like a butt," "Freaky," "Screw you," "What the hell /are you doing/were you thinking?" "I'm freezing my nuts off out here" (said by Katharine), "A hell of a lot faster," "Ain't that too damn bad," "My bad," "Ball" (testicle), "I screwed up a lot," "Nuts" (crazy), "He's nothing but a horny bastard," "Sure as hell," "You're G*ddman right it is" and "Hell of a save." While in the middle of their flight, Sarah enthusiastically asks Jeff if he wants to have sex in the plane's bathroom. They then try to, but aren't successful. Sarah finds Beau doing a yoga-type move of standing on his head, saying that it's a good hangover remedy. Sarah comments on a woman having "back cleavage" (folds of skin in a backless dress). Repeating something that happened in the past, Earl jokingly acts like he's going to kick Beau in the crotch, with Katharine then walking away holding her hand over her own crotch in a mocking fashion toward Beau. Katharine grabs Jeff's clothed butt while dancing with him at a wedding reception. JUMP SCENES None. MUSIC (SCARY/TENSE) None. MUSIC (INAPPROPRIATE) None. PROFANITY At least 3 "s" words, 1 slang term for sex ("diddled"), 1 for male genitals ("d*ck"), 8 hells, 1 damn, 1 S.O.B., 7 uses of "God," 6 of "Oh my God," 2 uses each of "G-damn," "Oh God" and "Oh Jesus" and 1 use each of "For God's sakes" and "Jesus." SEX/NUDITY Sarah comments on the past story (of "The Graduate") where a man and woman slept together, then the guy slept with that woman's daughter who later got married to someone else. We see footage from "The Graduate" where Dustin Hoffman's character (as seen through Anne Bancroft's legs in the foreground of the shot) accuses her of trying to seduce him. While in the middle of their flight, Sarah enthusiastically asks Jeff if he wants to have sex in the plane's bathroom. He thinks she's kidding, but she insists and so he then joins her in the cramped quarters. They try to get intimate (face to face and then with him behind her), but there's not enough room (there's no disrobing, just the starting and stopping of some kissing). She then accuses him of not being into it as he stares at himself in the mirror rather than at her. When turbulence knocks them around, he ends up on the floor with his arm in the toilet (not seen), with him saying "I'm being sucked and not in a good way." When Jeff learns they won't be sharing a room in her dad's house (his first time there), he jokes "They don't have sex in Pasadena?" We hear that Katharine was pregnant before she was married. Believing Sarah's mom was pregnant before she married, Jeff says someone could have slipped one past the goalie (a euphemism for conception). Sarah then asks Katharine if her mom (Katharine's daughter) slept with someone before she got married. When Sarah shows up at Jeff's door wearing a sexy nightshirt, he jokes that he hopes she's not planning on breaking the no sex in Pasadena rule (referring to the above scene). She then crawls into bed with him (showing cleavage), and he jokes about his lawyerly reading turning him on and a comment is made about them breaking those house rules (of no sex), but nothing else happens as she's now fixated on figuring out if her family was the source for "The Graduate." Sarah shows cleavage in her bridesmaid dress. Sarah thinks her mom ran off and got pregnant before her wedding. Not happy that Jeff is present (and with her wanting to talk to Sarah), Katharine tells him "Go play with your d*ck" and he retreats, sheepishly saying that he can do that. We see some miscellaneous cleavage. When there's talk of Sarah's family being the basis of "The Graduate," Jeff jokes that his family was the model for "Titanic," adding that while there was no boat and no sinking, he posed naked for a portrait. Sarah shows a little cleavage. Sarah asks Beau if he slept with her mother (he says he did) and wonders if he wore a condom (he seems flustered by that question). She then says that even if he did use one it's possible for it to fail, adding that they can slip right off, "especially if you..." (but she doesn't finish the thought about some sort of sexual movement). He then states that he's sterile and has been for a long time. About his past, Sarah asks if Beau "diddled grandma" (had sex with her). Sarah suddenly kisses Beau in a bar while intoxicated, apologizes and then does so again, this time more passionately. The next morning, she wakes up in his bed and can't believe what she did. She sits up and holds the covers over her chest (we see her bare back then and when she gets up and puts on one of his dress shirts and then walks around the room in just that). After Beau says to Sarah "You think I'm too old for you," she replies "You slept with my mother and grandmother." He replies with "What's your point?" and she says that maybe every girl in her family has to sleep with him. He then smiles and says he doesn't know if they have to, but adds that they certainly have. Sarah wears a ball gown that's cut low in the front (showing cleavage) and very low in the back (showing her bare back). A young man comes on to Sarah at a ball when she's momentarily sitting by herself. He then suddenly says "Wanna have sex?" but then says he's kidding upon seeing her reaction. When Sarah meets Beau's son (and thinks Beau was lying about being sterile), she suddenly thinks she had sex with her father (Beau). That makes him mad, sarcastically saying he made up this story so he could have sex with his daughter. Jeff sees Sarah kissing Beau. He states that he hopes that isn't her father and then asks if he slept with him. She says she was drunk and didn't mean to. Referring to Beau, Katharine tells Sarah that "He's nothing but a horny bastard." Annie shows some cleavage. Comparing their lives, Sarah asks Annie if she slept with a guy who slept with their mom and grandmother. Not understanding that, Annie is grossed out, thinking Sarah slept with their dad who slept with their grandmother. Repeating the line from the movie, Beau jokingly asks Katharine if she's trying to seduce him, prompting her to say he wasn't that good the first time. Earl tells Sarah that the night her mother came back to him, they conceived her. Sarah wears another low-cut top that shows cleavage. As the narrator, Sarah says about herself and Jeff that they slept together that night, and the next night, and the next and so on. Katharine grabs Jeff's clothed butt while dancing with him at a wedding reception. SMOKING Katharine smokes more than 5 times, while Anne Bancroft smokes once in the movie "The Graduate." Katharine knowingly breaks the rule about no smoking in the house by doing just that. TENSE FAMILY SCENES Sarah doesn't think she fits in with her family (due to their many differences in looks, beliefs, etc.). About her late husband, Katharine says "God bless his pickled soul." We hear that Sarah's mom is dead. Sarah says she was nine-years-old when her mom died (with Annie later saying she was four, and that she can't remember her). Although they're not married, Sarah and Jeff are engaged and she cheats on him, thus causing a great deal of strife between them. TOPICS TO TALK ABOUT Sarah isn't happy with her life. Some women gossip about another woman having a homosexual son. Jeff calls Sarah on not wearing her engagement ring (she has cold feet, but makes the excuse that she doesn't want to steal her sister's thunder of getting married that weekend). Sarah doesn't think she fits in with her family (due to their many differences in looks, beliefs, etc.). We hear that Katharine was pregnant before she was married. Katharine says that you haven't fully lived until you've had a divorce. About marriage, Katharine says to drink up as it will make it (the marriage) go a lot faster. Beau states that he's sterile due to "blunt testicular trauma" from when a player "kicked the wrong ball" in soccer and got him in the crotch." The comment that life should be a little nuts, otherwise it's just a bunch of Thursdays strung together. Thinking she slept with her biological dad (she didn't), Sarah states "This isn't 'The Graduate,' this is 'Deliverance.'" Beau tells Sarah that his son isn't his biological one or is adopted, but rather is the result of a donor (and that the young man doesn't know that). We hear that Annie had an anxiety attack on the way to her honeymoon. VIOLENCE Katharine accidentally opens a door quite hard into Jeff. Katharine twice pushes Beau backwards into his car while mad at him. Reviewed December 19, 2005/ Posted December 25, 2005