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The Accidental Husband (12A)
Director
Griffin Dunne
Griffin Dunne
Review byMatthew Turner27/02/2008
One out of Five stars
Running time: 90 mins
Dismal romantic comedy that gets everything wrong, thanks to an appalling script, bad performances, embarrassing stereotypes, zero chemistry between the leads and painfully unfunny jokes.
What's it all about?
Uma Thurman plays Dr Emma Lloyd, a New York DJ-slash-agony aunt who's happily engaged to her dependable fiance Richard (Colin Firth). However, when she advises one of her listeners (an under-used Justina Machado) to call off her wedding, the groom-to-be (Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Patrick) decides to give her a taste of her own medicine and agrees to let a hacker friend (Jeffrey Tedmori) alter her marital details on the City Hall database.
Sure enough, when Emma and Richard turn up to register their imminent nuptials, Emma discovers, to her horror that she's already married. Believing the detail to be a computer glitch, she sets out to find Patrick and put the record straight, but Patrick has other ideas.
The Bad
There is so much wrong with The Accidental Husband that it's hard to know where to start. For one thing, the plot is horribly contrived and has the unfortunate effect of turning its intended-to-be-sympathetic male lead into an unlikeable git who breaks up a relationship just for revenge.
The acting is pretty bad too – Thurman tries too hard and ends up just plain irritating, while you just feel embarrassed for the likes of Colin Firth, Sam Shepard (as Emma's dad) and particularly Isabella Rossellini and Keir Dullea who are forced to do the sort of German accents that you usually find in movies involving comedy Nazis.
The Worst
Unfortunately, the stereotyping doesn't end there, because Patrick lives above an Indian restaurant, allowing for a shoehorned-in family of Indian stereotypes and the obligatory Indian dance sequence. Similarly, none of the jokes work and the script requires its characters to make so many stupid decisions that you eventually just give up in disgust.
Worth seeing?
In short, The Accidental Husband is an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. If you want a decent romantic comedy, then go and see Definitely, Maybe instead.
Running time: 90 mins
Dismal romantic comedy that gets everything wrong, thanks to an appalling script, bad performances, embarrassing stereotypes, zero chemistry between the leads and painfully unfunny jokes.
What's it all about?
Uma Thurman plays Dr Emma Lloyd, a New York DJ-slash-agony aunt who's happily engaged to her dependable fiance Richard (Colin Firth). However, when she advises one of her listeners (an under-used Justina Machado) to call off her wedding, the groom-to-be (Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Patrick) decides to give her a taste of her own medicine and agrees to let a hacker friend (Jeffrey Tedmori) alter her marital details on the City Hall database.
Sure enough, when Emma and Richard turn up to register their imminent nuptials, Emma discovers, to her horror that she's already married. Believing the detail to be a computer glitch, she sets out to find Patrick and put the record straight, but Patrick has other ideas.
The Bad
There is so much wrong with The Accidental Husband that it's hard to know where to start. For one thing, the plot is horribly contrived and has the unfortunate effect of turning its intended-to-be-sympathetic male lead into an unlikeable git who breaks up a relationship just for revenge.
The acting is pretty bad too – Thurman tries too hard and ends up just plain irritating, while you just feel embarrassed for the likes of Colin Firth, Sam Shepard (as Emma's dad) and particularly Isabella Rossellini and Keir Dullea who are forced to do the sort of German accents that you usually find in movies involving comedy Nazis.
The Worst
Unfortunately, the stereotyping doesn't end there, because Patrick lives above an Indian restaurant, allowing for a shoehorned-in family of Indian stereotypes and the obligatory Indian dance sequence. Similarly, none of the jokes work and the script requires its characters to make so many stupid decisions that you eventually just give up in disgust.
Worth seeing?
In short, The Accidental Husband is an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. If you want a decent romantic comedy, then go and see Definitely, Maybe instead.
Film Trailer
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