Some Kind of Beautiful

A sappy title to go with a sappy film, "Some Kind of Beautiful," is a dreary romantic comedy about a scallywag of a university professor of English Literature, Richard (Pierce Brosnan) who cannot sustain a sexual (let alone a romantic) relationship with any of the pretty young co-eds in his classrooms (lawsuits, anyone?), until he beds and weds young Kate (Jessica Alba), who is half-sister to Olivia (Salma Hayek).

But then Kate gets bored with his over-grown Byronic Act and leaves him for a younger (and presumably more romantic) fellow, Brian (Ben McKenzie). Richard then falls for Olivia. And then his irascible father, Gordon (Malcolm McDowell) ventures back into his life, with advice both profound and profane. Etc. Absolutely nothing original, all in high gloss cinematography, with proper Hollywood music, Etc.

Director Tom Vaughan and writer Matthew Newman are both professionals with excellent credentials from Vaughan and extremely skimpy ones by Newman. So, what are we to make of their film? It's simple-minded, beautifully produced, generously acted by all, and a bore. How are we supposed to care for these people, especially the Professor with his wandering eye (watch him in class - creepy!) and a delayed admission into adulthood, or his much younger wife who's crazy about him until three years have passed, and her slightly older sibling whose motivations are not well-spelled out....well, it's hard to find ways of admiring any of them.

Now that's the script. Vaughan definitely does his job in keeping the pace and the action going, and his cast is game and they do what they can. But Brosnan has not had a great run of scripts since he last played James Bond, the lovely Alba is making one of her large leaps at filmdom, and Hayek, a particular favorite of mine, is her usual sensible, sexy self. McDowell, McKenzie, etc, are all just fine. But that's all this is - just fine - not fine enough, however. The kind of dumb film which get made and then dumped, when belatedly everyone goes "Ohhhhhh, nooooooooooooo! What have we done?!?!?" Yup, that kind of waste of money and energy.

There is something so stolid and thoughtless about this kind of Hollywood RomCom. They seldom make an ounce of sense, are too often gussied up television fare and leave characterization and interaction as if it were middle-school, with pouting and swearing the order of the day. Dull-dull-dull!

If you truly don't care about real people being written for these puerile stories, then there's enough "pretty" in it to soothe one's no-longer-savage beast. But if you do care about intelligent writing, skip this one.

"Some Kind of Beautiful"
Blu-ray + Digital
$12.96 on Amazon.
www.lionsgate.com