I love Sandra Bullock. I love her because she’s funny and beautiful and self-deprecating, but mainly because she reminds me of my scouser friend Helen, with whom I lived and studied and worked for too many years to recount. Watching Sandra Bullock is like they stuck a hidden camera in our living room and stole our lives.
The Proposal – Ms. Bullock’s latest outing – is a predictable, nice enough rom com. Here she plays a career bitch Canadian who’s threatened with deportation to Toronto. To save herself, she conjures up a plan to marry her sweet, put-upon, eye-candy assistant, Ryan Reynolds, and as part of the deception, she joins him for a weekend with his family in Alaska. Cue lots of tottering power heels on soggy grassy lawns. Done to death as a concept, but still carried off well enough.
On the negative sides, Mr. Reynolds spends nowhere near enough time shirtless, which would seem to me to be a bit of a waste. Also, I don’t mean to be nasty, but ( – and unlike Helen, I might add, who remains gorgeous – ) Sandra’s a little long in the tooth for too many more romantic lead roles; she’s looking a wee bit taut. Interestingly also, in spite of a lot being made of the Sitka, Alaska, location – and the locations do indeed look like Sitka – the movie shot almost entirely in Massachussets, with the snowy peaks etched in on green screen.
