It all just doesn't work.By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"
Diane Keaton's Daphne in Because I Said So is an obsessed mom who will not let up on her campaign to marry off a daughter, Molly ( Mandy Moore), whose catering business has become her love rather than an eligible man, say an architect, certainly not a musician.
The only way to save this lame romcom existing to showcase the aging Keaton's remarkable body and lingering Annie Hall comic flourishes is to include enough pratfalls, cakes in the face, and comic clich?s to hope the pre-Oscar audience, hungry for even a whiff of entertainment, will ignore the stupidity of the script and Keaton's forced performance, surely a sign that this celebrated actress knew it all was weak from the get-go.
And her dresses, with belts wide enough to gird an elephant, are just as over the top as her responses. It all just doesn't work. I was embarrassed for Keaton and Moore, who deserve much better material, and for the writers, whose idea of the domineering mother setting up dates for her daughter through online dating service was much better done in Must Love Dogs when sister signed up sister. No doubt our pop culture needs to confront the obsessive mom, as I did my first wife, but it needs to rid itself of clich?s and add wit.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's "It's Movie Time," which can be heard streaming at www.wcbe.org Fridays at 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm and on demand anytime. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com