Failure To Launch film review

certificate_12A

FAILURE TO LAUNCH

Whether the rumours about Matthew McConaughey disliking his co-star Sarah Jessica Parker are true, one thing is certain, there isn't much love on screen. Suffice to say, Bogart and Bacall they are not. McConaughey apparently referred to Parker as "peculiar", a term that could equally have been aimed at moments in this all too un-romantic comedy. I'm not quite sure why it is that this genre allows the normal rules of plausibility to be stretched beyond credulity, but any film which includes one man giving CPR to a mocking bird and another being savaged by a chipmunk lays itself open to ridicule.

As often happens when the central pairing lack the necessary chemistry to sustain events, it's left to the peripheral characters to salvage things. In Failure To Launch it's Zooey Deschanel who steals the show as Paula's (Parker) droll, cynical flatmate Kit. Paula is a professional interventionist, a job that requires her to lure away grown men who are reluctant to severe their apron strings. It's not clear how many cruel parents would pay a woman to have their son fall in love with them for the sole purpose of having him move out, even though the move would be swiftly followed by inevitable heartache as the woman leaves to move on to her next client. But such questions aren't the domain of Failure To Launch, which simply expects us to buy into such a spurious premise.

The client in this instance is Tripp (McConaughey), a 35-year-old arrested adolescent boat broker for whom living with his parents serves him well. He gets fed, has his laundry done and, more importantly, can neatly terminate any relationship that looks like it's getting serious by simply bringing the unsuspecting girl home. It's a tactic that's worked successfully for years, but one Tripp's parents Sue and Al (Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw) have become increasingly tired of. Desperate to finally have their nest emptied, they call in Paula.