A LOT LIKE LOVE

A LOT LIKE LOVE is a younger version of such romantic comedies like SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE and WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. It is nearly as entertaining as those movies, especially WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, and nearly as entertaining as this year’s Number One hit, HITCH, another romantic comedy starring Will Smith. Moral audiences will not find it as satisfying, however, as SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE or even HITCH, or especially the more pristine romantic comedies they used to make during the Golden Age of Hollywood. That said, we should remember that even some of the best romantic comedies of the Golden Age had their racier, sexually suggestive moments.

A LOT LIKE LOVE stars Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet as Oliver and Emily, two diametrically opposed twenty somethings who meet on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. At the airport, Oliver watches Emily fight with her boyfriend, a rock guitarist. Their eyes meet later, and on the plane, Emily disappears with Oliver into the plane’s restroom.

In New York, Oliver tries to strike up a friendship with Emily, but Emily is a spontaneous person who doesn’t understand Oliver’s compulsion to work on his planned career to establish a diaper delivery service through the Internet. Oliver figures the right woman will automatically come along as Oliver rises up the business ladder to financial security. Emily challenges this idea, so Oliver gives her his parents’ phone number and tells her to contact him in seven years, and he’ll make her eat her words.

Emily doesn’t wait seven years, however. She contacts Oliver a few years later when Emily’s boyfriend suddenly breaks up with her, and she needs a date for New Year’s Eve. Despite the changes in their lives, the couple clicks emotionally and intellectually. Even so, Oliver already has plans to move to San Francisco the very next day, whereupon he hopes to use some venture capital to get the Internet diaper service up and running.

Over the next several years, Emily and Oliver continue looking each other up at certain crisis points in their lives. Circumstances keep pulling them apart. Yet, as their friendship and love grows, it becomes evident that these two people must find some way, somehow, to put everything else aside so they can finally be together.

A LOT LIKE LOVE is cleverly written and directed. Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet give very entertaining, emotionally appealing performances. They sparkle brightly whenever they are together onscreen. Viewers will want these people to overcome the differences and circumstances pulling them apart and fall in love.

As the movie’s production notes state, the movie attempts to show the long and winding road that so many people often must navigate to find romance and friendship in today’s chaotic world. In doing this, however, the movie’s philosophy is mostly a humanist one. Although the movie does not attack religion, it implies that people can find their romantic partners without appealing to religious beliefs or God. The movie also implies that it’s okay to fool around sexually and live together before getting married. Furthermore, the movie never warns viewers that there are moral, spiritual and eternal consequences for such sexual immorality.

Therefore, although the characters are likeable people who don’t go out of their way to hurt others, MOVIEGUIDE® must give this movie our extreme caution acceptability rating. This rating is usually designed for older teenagers and adults, unless stated otherwise. The fornication and sexual immorality in the movie is not overtly depicted, however. There is really only one scene where that is not the case. In that scene, Oliver and Emily are outside naked hugging, and Emily makes a delayed photograph showing a side view of their naked rear ends as they embrace (always consult our CONTENT section before you decide to go to any movie).