Ask just about anyone who's worked for someone else in their career and they'll likely have their own version of the "boss from Hell" tale to tell. While that sometimes stems from people being too thin-skinned and/or some degree of misunderstanding between employer and employee, there are undeniable cases of workplace tyrants run amuck.
You know, the kind featuring egotistical dictators who order their subordinates to do something not in their job description, that's demeaning to them or others, and sometimes is borderline or all of the way across the line of questionable or even illegal behavior.
I doubt, however, at least in today's work environment, that many involve getting married, which, of course, would be pushing things too far even for the worst sort of boss. But it's that exaggerated scenario that serves as the backdrop and propels "The Proposal," yet another romantic comedy featuring one of the reigning queens of that cinema category, Sandra Bullock.
While the actress has played all sorts of characters in various genres, she's probably best associated with the rom-com, and she easily slides back into that persona in this film from director Anne Fletcher ("27 Dresses," "Step Up"). Before she settles into her standard genre role (friendly and reactive with occasional outbursts of emotion), however, newbie writer Pete Chiarelli has Bullock doing the Miranda Priestly thing as the feared boss who has everyone scrambling for cover whenever she passes by.
Although that sort of role is hardly original (obviously, since Meryl Streep did it so well in "The Devil Wears Prada" a few years back), it decently serves the film due to the adversarial relationship it provides for the lead characters. Regular readers know I'm not a huge fan of the rom-com genre (due to the same sort of story being run into the ground through overuse and predictability), but if done just right, they can work for what they are.
The cast and crew manage to do that in the first act, thanks to the snippy and snarky remarks exchanged between the boss and her subordinate. That intensifies when he gets to turn the tables on her a bit -- due to her needing him to play along so that she isn't deported back to Canada for an expired visa -- and the film starts to hit its full stride.
Unfortunately, it doesn't manage to sustain that as the story then has the two travel to Sitka, Alaska where she meets his family (Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson and Betty White, the latter being fun, but doing the tired "sex crazed for comedy" grandma bit) and the two must pretend to be a loving and now engaged couple.
That leads to the required first uncomfortable kiss, spending the night in the same bedroom and such, and while there's nothing novel there, Bullock and Reynolds (who continues to redeem himself from the awful and obnoxious "Van Wilder" stint back in '02) do a decent job of milking it for all it's worth.
And then -- to the joy of fans of the genre and the chagrin of those of us who've seen too many of these flicks -- the two start falling for each other, resulting in the overall effort progressively becoming too serious as well as defanged. Adversarial relationship venom is and has always been the fuel that makes the best of these sorts of offerings work so well (go back and look at the classics for proof positive of that), and once it dries up here, so does a fair amount of the fun.
That doesn't turn this offering into a bad film, just a predictable and rote one with previously telegraphed moments coming to fruition, the playing out of the obligatory third act break-up, and yes, even the last minute dash to the airport where one character tries to tell the other how they really feel.
Die-hard romantics will likely both expect and love the arrival of those usual suspects, but all of that leaves an eternal optimist like yours truly -- always hopeful that filmmakers will break or at least bend the mold -- standing jilted at the cinematic altar of change. Good for a while but ultimately falling too far into its genre conventions, "The Proposal" rates as a 5 out of 10.
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