|
YET more
evidence that the end of the world is near: Ashton
Kutcher is about to become a major movie star. It hurts
all of us, I know, but my generation worst of all. As we
settle into dotage and senility, do we need to be
reminded how at twentysomething he married one of the
most beautiful women of our generation (Demi Moore), how
before he was 30 he became a household name and produced
a hugely popular show (Punk’d), how he is loved
and adored by just about everyone?
Not that
What Happens in Vegas is any kind of great movie,
but it’s an exceedingly bright comedy that never makes
you feel stupid for enjoying its brisk pacing, smart
lines, sound construction and superb comic acting, not
only from the annoyingly accomplished Kutcher but from
Cameron Diaz and well-chosen No. 2 bananas Rob Corddry
and Lake Bell.
IMPOSSIBLY BEAUTIFUL,
OUTRAGEOUSLY GOOD.
Cameron Diaz and Ashton
Kutcher make a fine and fabulous pair in the thoroughly
delightful What Happens in Vegas.
The
gimmick is at least as old as The 39 Steps: The plot
invents circumstances by which two attractive people,
who hold deep aversions to each other, are linked (by
handcuffs either actual or, as in this case,
metaphorical) and must contend with all kinds of
dilemmas. You know what happens next because you
understand how perfect they are for each other long
before they do.
The
waggle worked in this variant (by screenwriter Dana Fox)
is that Kutcher and Diaz, each having suffered a
crushing disaster (she: dumped; he: fired), have gone to
Las Vegas for some healing. They meet one drunken evening, and they have
Olympic-quality sex. Alas, either before or after or,
God help us, during—they also get married. OK, no big
deal, time for a quickie divorce, no harm/no foul,
except—here’s the waggle—she gives him a quarter, he
feeds it into a slot machine and they win $3 million.
Who gets it? Why can’t they just split it? (Because
there’d be no movie, obviously.) Greedily, each tries to
get the whole pot, and an irritable judge (Dennis Miller
at his snarkiest) sentences them to live together, man
and wife, for six months. The judge sets rules, as well,
so that it is to each’s advantage to get the other to
break them.
Thus the
movie is a pas de deux—or would that be a mano-a-womano—in
which two people try to goad each other into subverting
the marriage arrangement.
The best
thing about the fight is how unfairly each wages it, and
how the campaigns are based on the classical fault lines
of boy-girl cohabitation. That one about the toilet seat
(it always has to be down?): The movie addresses it in a
clever scene in which Diaz’s Joy McNally tries to
explain the fundamental difference between the deep
concepts of “up” and “down,” as if she’s explaining
quantum theory to a chimp. It’s a terrific little set
piece, particularly for the expression on her face,
which is an odd blend of pity, contempt, boredom,
irritation and loathing, all without destroying the fact
that she’s staggeringly beautiful.
Kutcher’s Jack Fuller retaliates by taking the seat,
then the lid, and finally the door from the bathroom.
It’s that kind of movie: All’s fair in love and greed.
Some
workplace chicanery comes into play, too. She’s a Wall
Street trader, trying for a big promotion, competing
against a ruthless Asian adversary (detract 20 points
for Lucy Liu-style cliche, so unnecessary); while he’s
struggling to hold a job as a custom furniture builder
for an extremely picky boss (Treat Williams).
As is
customary to the genre, each has a pal, a kind of
doppelganger couple that interacts in a kind of shadow
parody of the main relationship. In this case, Daily
Show grad Corddry—so awful in Harold and Kumar Escape
From Guantanamo Bay—is extremely funny as Jack’s
friend Hater, the worst lawyer in the world; Bell goes
deadpan as Joy’s friend Tipper.
But the
real pleasure in the film comes from the two stars, both
of whom put vanity and narcissism far behind, and are
pleased to let the movie deploy them as less than noble,
less than capable, less than smart, less than selfless
and less than beautiful and, therefore, more than human,
even if alarmingly young. |
