The Perfect Man (2005)reviewed by Benn "Where's the Humanity?" Farrell
"The Perfect Man" is about Holly, played by Hilary Duff (Cheaper By the Dozen), who tries to get her mother to stop being so desperate in finding a companion. Her MO is, she hooks up with a complete loser. He burns her, and the whole family moves. Holly her mother and her younger sister. However, Holly decides, to keep her mom, played by the still smokin' Heather Locklear (Money Talks), for falling for a new loser from work, she invents "the perfect man" who woos her through emails and instant messaging. Of course, all of Holly's lies mount and eventually people's feelings get hurt but in the end, everyone gets what they want. I thought Hilary Duff did very well. She was very believable and captures all the silly nuances about being her own age. Locklear showed she could still put a role together. This kind of picture is a high powered acting movie, but it's nice to see a mature actor give her role the proper preparation, even if she could get away with phoning it in. The picture is up and down a chick flick, and there's no getting around it. However, in places where the picture could go ridiculous, for the most part, the writers keep the work grounded, which I appreciated. The only thing that I thought brought the picture down was its lack of conflict. Obviously, the picture had conflict. And it was believable and pretty realistic; however, I simply thought it could have gone further. There was one part in the movie where Holly and her mom were instant messaging each other. The mom thought she was emailing her perfect man. The conversation went in a direction where Holly asks her mom about having kids before getting to have a life. The mother says something like, "There is no life without my kids," and Hilary Duff starts crying a bit and is more patient with her mother for the next few sequences of the movie. I thought, how much better and dynamic would this picture have gotten if the mother expressed something a little more painful for Holly to hear. Obviously, the mom isn't going to say she regrets having the kids, but if they could have her say something to make Holly feel unwanted, THAT could have created better conflict between the two characters for the remainder of the film. As it stands, the picture's conflicts are tied up in a nice little package with a bow, and not allowed to mount, with the exception of all the lying Holly was doing. Overall, I think if you've seen the previews for this picture and thought it would be crap, you may be pleasantly surprised if you see it. If the trailer made you WANT to see it, than you're REALLY going to like "The Perfect Man." Benn - Where's the Humanity?
I went and saw this movie only because I had very little time to see and and it was the only one showing that I hadn't seen yet that day.