‘Back-up Plan’ another failed romantic comedy
”
The Back-up Plan
”
proves once again that a good romantic comedy is elusive. The
movie had promise with its good-looking lead characters and a
quirky premise to cause tension between the two. But
”
The Back-up Plan
”
is one of those movies that falls flat on many levels.
Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) is the beautiful owner of a pet store who
has given up on finding Mr. Right. But she still wants a baby, even
if it means having one on her own. The screenwriter, Kate Angelo,
doesn’t really develop the character enough to allow viewers to see
why Zoe has given up so completely on finding love. There are just
short mentions of her working in the corporate world and focusing
on her career, and then later talk of possible commitment issues
because of experiences with her parents when she was a kid.
‘Back-up Plan’ another failed romantic comedy
“The Back-up Plan” proves once again that a good romantic comedy is elusive. The movie had promise with its good-looking lead characters and a quirky premise to cause tension between the two. But “The Back-up Plan” is one of those movies that falls flat on many levels.
Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) is the beautiful owner of a pet store who has given up on finding Mr. Right. But she still wants a baby, even if it means having one on her own. The screenwriter, Kate Angelo, doesn’t really develop the character enough to allow viewers to see why Zoe has given up so completely on finding love. There are just short mentions of her working in the corporate world and focusing on her career, and then later talk of possible commitment issues because of experiences with her parents when she was a kid.
The movie starts on the day Zoe has decided to get artificially inseminated. Just outside the New York City medical offices, when she tries to hail a cab someone else gets into the cab from the other side of the door. Stan (Alex O’Loughlin) and Zoe fight over the cab, until they both decided to give it up.
A few days later Zoe is out with a friend, Mona (Michaela Watkins), who has been telling her how awful motherhood is. They stop at a farmers’ market and Stan happens to be there. He works for a dairy that makes cheese and he sells it at the market. He approaches Zoe even though their first meeting wasn’t a pleasant one, and he’s making some progress at winning her over until another vendor stops by and flirtatiously says she will see him later.
Zoe assumes the cute girl is someone Stan is seeing so she walks away. But Stan continues to pursue her, calling her at the pet shop she owns and sending her flowers. She finally relents and agrees to go on a date with him. Before the date, she takes a pregnancy test but the results are delayed when her dog chews on the stick and swallows part of it. After a somewhat successful date, she finds her dog has thrown up the piece of paper that shows a positive plus sign – she is pregnant.
She goes on a few more dates with Stan without telling him about her pregnancy because she doesn’t want to scare him off. He invites her up to his farm and she promises herself she will tell him about the pregnancy. But then he confesses to her that he never wants to have kids so she puts off telling him a bit longer. In fact, she only tells him after she has a bout of morning – or evening – sickness in front of him. Stan freaks out and says Zoe lied to him and he takes off. But a while later he decides that he really does like her and he’s willing to help her raise her babies – even though he has been on only a few dates with her.
The rest of the movie follows the ups and downs of their relationship as Stan struggles to overcome his fear of becoming a parent so quickly and Zoe’s fear that Stan will leave her.
The worst parts of the movie are the scenes with a group of secondary characters, a single mother’s support group that Zoe joins before she starts dating Stan. The group is made up of loony, single women who are devoted to their children and staying single. The scenes with the woman go for cheap laughs, such as a scene of a half-crazed woman giving birth in a kiddy pool while all the other women standing around chanting. None of it was very funny.
The other distracting thing in the movie is the blatant product placement in some of the scenes. When Zoe hosts a lecture in her store, it is with Cesar Millan, of “Dog Whisperer” fame. And in one scene late into her pregnancy, Zoe lies in bed surrounding by McDonald’s products – French fries, a large coke and an order of chicken nuggets. The items were so prominent, viewers could read the packaging.
There just wasn’t enough of a script to make the characters interesting or likeable. Due to the weak screenplay, Lopez and O’Loughling come across as bad actors. “The Back-up Plan” should only be seen as a last resort.
