Must Love Dogs (2005)reviewed by Benn "Where's the Humanity?" Farrell
"Must Love Dogs" is about Sarah, played by Diane Lane (Unfaithful), and Jake, played by John Cusak (Better Off Dead), as they attempt to pick up the romantic pieces of their lives after being burned by love. The two eventually find themselves through the pressure of friends and family, and the help of an Internet dating website, but they run into conflict as each of them struggle to embrace themselves before being able to embrace each other. Lane was awesome and beautiful in this movie, particularly in her scenes with Elizabeth Perkins (Big), who plays her sister. Their scenes together were awesome, great chemistry. Cusak and Ben Shenkman (Angels in America) also played well off each other. Cusak has not lost his solid sense of comedic writing. The script, adapted by Gary David Goldberg (Bye, Bye, Love), has the feeling of a TV sitcom script. There are three big laughs every minute, much like the standard for TV sitcom writing. It was very smartly written and well paced, a credit to the director Goldberg as well. The only thing that hurt the picture was the end of Act Three began to look like your average romantic comedy ending, except the movie wasn't a comedy, so it didn't fit very well. It was cliched, including the big chase every romantic comedy seems to demand. Overall, this is a great date movie. There's a lot of good laughs for guys in it, so guys shouldn't feel bad about being dragged to it, or being forced to rent it. It's very funny and well acted, trumping much of the releases to come out this summer (2005). Benn - Where's the Humanity?
Although this has the look of a comedy, it is not…exactly. This picture is a very well written light hearted drama that's a laugh a minute, but far from situational comedy.