Rumour Has It film review

certificate_12A

RUMOUR HAS IT

It's hard to imagine that there will be a less effective Hollywood comedy this year than Rumour Has It, a glossy confectionery which raises several questions about the people involved. Can this laughter-free zone really be directed by Rob Reiner, the man who gave us the comedy classics This is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally? What is Jennifer Aniston's shelf-life as a movie star? And is Mark Ruffalo - touted as the new Brando when he first appeared in films such as You Can Count On Me only a few years ago - destined to spend the rest of his days as a supporting player in weak romantic comedies?

To be fair, the film does not have a bad premise. Aniston plays Sarah Hutlinger, newly engaged to Jeff (Ruffalo), and back in her hometown of Pasadena for her younger sister's wedding. At the ceremony she finds out a bizarre, but possibly true, fact from her grandmother (Shirley MacLaine). Not only did Charles Webb, the author of The Graduate, come from Pasadena, but he may have even based his novel and the subsequent film on events that occurred in Sarah's own family.

Sarah - who is having second thoughts about her impending marriage - decides to investigate, and soon finds that a mysterious billionaire Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner) did in fact have his eye on her mother just before she got married. For Beau Burroughs read Ben Braddock as played by Dustin Hoffman in the classic movie. For Katherine Ross - the woman that Ben eventually runs away with - read Sarah's own mother. As for the infamous Mrs Robinson, Sarah has to find out if her own grandmother played the real-life role.

It's the execution and script however that really let Rumour Has It down. The film basically consists of three long sequences: the initial wedding, an interminable middle section when Aniston meets, is charmed by, and ultimately tries to understand Costner's character as well as her own, and a final return home to resolve everything. There is very little if any subplot and as for laughs, most of them revolve around the fact that Americans seem to find anyone from, and everything about, Pasadena hilarious. It's a joke that doesn't really translate.