Along Came Polly

Written and directed by John Hamburg

             Hopefully, Ben Stiller will not get so tiresome that people will dismiss the debut of his neurotic and fumbling character of which he is now typecast.  David O. Russell (Flirting With Disaster) knew how to make awkward situations funny without being cringing.  Nowadays writers don’t seem to see the difference because there is an innate response to uncomfortable moments which can be mistaken for amusement.  In Along Came Polly, Stiller is charming and often entertaining, but he remains trapped in the familiar role and conventional script.

            He plays Rueben Feffer, an insurance company risk assessor who catches his wife Lisa (Debra Messing) cheating on the first day of their honeymoon.  He decides to move on and date Polly Prince (Jennifer Aniston), a flaky woman with no direction in life.  She ends up being risky for Rueben, he the sufferer of irritable bowel syndrome, as she takes him to one ethnic restaurant after another leading to a gross-out bit involving a plugged up toilet which thankfully doesn’t go as nasty as another film might have.  With nothing in common and no chemistry they somehow find they still like each other as their differences become complimentary and liberating. 

            In the end, though, the script goes completely by the numbers with the third act as boy loses girl, boy realizes he cannot live without girl and must chase down the cab taking her to the airport and boy makes long speech in order to convince girl that they should stay together and she should not get on that flight.  Banality can still be enjoyable, though, if it is the most fitting way to go.  Stiller and Aniston, however, do not click and maybe it is the actress’s fault as I’ve never felt her connection to anyone on screen.   The characters are so different, at least on the one-dimensional levels we’re shown, that there are no signs that they should stay together, despite the fact that Reuben is never asked to take on activities more extreme or outrageous than salsa dancing and slicing up throw pillows.  It can be believable of Reuben, given his other options, that in desperation he might think this conclusion best for himself, but it cannot be with Polly.

            The film is basically watchable aside from the trite ending, as a date movie to relieve awkward tension between new couples.  Philip Seymour Hoffman is hilarious as Reuben’s best friend Sandy, a former child actor with an ego.  Bryan Brown, Alec Baldwin and Hank Azaria also provide some comedy with which to distract from how boring the leads are.  There are some gags involving a ferret and others regarding sexual foreplay and prowess which fall flat but can be largely forgiven.  It is Aniston who never really provides more than a body with badly made-up eyes.  She brings absolutely nothing to the movie.

            Stiller can show us over and over again how much he’s a more plausible cross between Woody Allen and Jerry Lewis, but it is growing quite old.  He is capable of much more, remembered more now that his sketch show from ten years ago is finally available on DVD.  The problem is that movies which utilize this talent, like Mystery Men and Zoolander fare much worse at the box office.   

            John Hamburg certainly creates a more fluid story with his scripts than Jay Roach (Meet the Parents) who almost seems to just point a camera at his actors and allow them complete freedom.  In Roach’s case, though, there tend to be bigger laughs as a result and in the long run, a big laugh is more memorable than an unimaginative romantic comedy.  So while I despised Meet the Parents and did not despise Along Came Polly, the latter film will not remain in my thoughts for very long.