(Ok, that’s just wrong…)
CAST: Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Shirley MacLaine, Mark Ruffalo, Mena Suvari, Richard Jenkins, Kathy Bates.
DIRECTOR: Rob Reiner
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and more Unpleasant Love Triangles straight ahead…
There’s a solid romance struggling to escape from the unpleasantly smothering confines of RUMOR HAS IT. It’s a love triangle between a hot older man, a hot younger woman, and the woman’s more age-appropriate boyfriend.
Unfortunately, because of some rather bizarre plot twists associated with film’s main premise, the triangle turns into yet another example of the ULT - or “Unpleasant Love Triangle” syndrome. In my review for PROOF OF LIFE (review #159), the ULT was caused by the leads (Russell Crowe, Meg Ryan) being less sympathetic than the third point of the triangle (David Morse).
In RUMOR HAS IT, however, all three points of the triangle (Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Mark Ruffalo) are reasonably likable. What makes it a little unpleasant are the circumstances that create the triangle in the first place. I shall explain…
Our heroine is Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston), a neurotic NYC journalist traveling back home to Pasadena with her boring fiancee Jeff Daly (Mark Ruffalo) to attend the wedding of her dingbat sister Annie (Mena Suvari). We know Jeff is boring because in the opening scene of RUMOR HAS IT, he and Sarah are on a plane enroute to L.A. Sarah asks him to, ahem, join the Mile-High Club with her. And he refuses. If that’s not a lousy candidate for a husband, I don’t know who is. And we know Annie is a dingbat because instead of greeting guests with “Hello. How are you? Thanks for coming.” she basically jumps up and down as if the hydraulics in her ass have gone haywire, all the while yapping like a schnauzer on crack.
At the wedding rehearsal dinner (or whatever the hell you call it), Sarah runs into her lush of a grandma, Katherine Richelieu (Shirley MacLaine). And if she’s not a piece of work, I don’t know who is. To wit, Katherine: (1) slams back vodka-on-rocks like it’s made by Evian; (2) walks around imperiously like she’s the Queen of the Lushes (which, I guess, she is); and (3) slams every single person she encounters with some not-so-well-chosen cutting remarks.
Katherine, dear, my nieces verbally-destroyed the other kids on the playground with far better zingers. Now that they’re adults, I hope to hell you never run into them. They just might school you on the art of sarcasm - then eat you alive. Yes, I have created monsters.
Anyhow, Sarah learns from Katherine that her mom had a fling right before marrying Sarah’s fuddy-duddy Dad (Richard Jenkins). I should mention that Sarah has always felt out of place in her family. That is, all her life she’s apparently felt less dull than her father, and less idiotic than her sister. So, as you can imagine, being told that her mom had one last happy-fuck before throwing away the key, is enough to make our neurotic heroine think that… she has a different father. And he just might be this mystery guy that Momsy banged six ways from Sunday right before saying her wedding vows.
Oh, but it gets better… See, there’s been this persistent real-life rumor running around Pasadena that the novel/film THE GRADUATE was based on a real-life family. And somehow, through a thoroughly WTF chain of illogical events, Sarah begins to think that her own family is the basis of THE GRADUATE. Meaning her father might actually be the real-life version of Benjamin Braddock.
Now, if you haven’t seen THE GRADUATE, none of the above and certainly none of what follows will make a goddamned difference - so I suggest you skip on back to some other reviews. But, if you have seen it, then you already know that THE GRADUATE was about a college dude who fucked both a college girl and her lush mother. And the college girl went to marry someone else. Now, from Sarah’s apparently rather warped perspective, the college girl was her mother, the someone else was her father, and she is possibly the daughter of the mysterious college dude.
That’s when Sarah turns into Nancy Drew, and starts digging into her mother’s past to find out her mystery lover was. She starts with her Aunt Mitzi (Kathy Bates), who makes Katherine look like a model of sobriety. Having Bloody Marys for breakfast, Mitzi basically slurs out the info that Sarah needs: (1) the college dude is someone named Beau Burroughs, (2) he indeed rocked her mother’s world (or at least her clitoris) just a few days before the wedding; and (3) he’s one hot Mo-Fo in their 1962 yearbook who looks like a young Kevin Costner.
Now that she has a name, Sarah basically turns into a heat-seeking missile. Or, more accurately, a Beau Burroughs-seeking missile. Sending Jeff back on his own to NYC, Sarah rushes up to San Francisco where Beau, who is evidently some sort of media tycoon now, is speaking at a convention. In Frisco, Sarah finally gets a first real look at the man who just might be her real father.
And he really does look like Kevin Costner. I guess that’s because Beau is actually being played by Kevin Costner. Who, as we know, is one hot mo-fo.
After some rather unsettling scenes of Beau coming on to the chick who just might be his daughter, we are finally relieved of our discomfort when he reveals that Sarah couldn’t possibly be his daughter. Why? Well, evidently, when Beau was in high school he was a soccer player (football to you folks on the continent) and suffered some, uh, blunt testicular trauma. English translation: he got his nuts smashed in. Which resulted in him, uh, shooting blanks from then on. Meaning he can never have children.
Now, guys, lets pause for a moment in silence as we cradle our “boys” and pray that never happens to us. I hope to hell Clark Kent protects his nuts when playing soccer because his future wife is going to be pissed if he loses the ability to breed - and a world without little Clark Kents running around in it would be a bleak one indeed.
Okay, back to the review… So, as you can imagine, the knowledge that Beau is not her father is such a load off Sarah’s mind that she celebrates by… fucking him.
Okay, folks. Let me ask you a question: would you sleep with someone that just a few hours ago you were convinced was your parent? For Sarah, apparently, the answer is: “HELL, YEAH! IF HE LOOKS LIKE KEVIN COSTNER!!!” Anyway, Sarah and Beau end up slamming pelvises a few times, blissful in the knowledge that when Beau yells, “WHO’S YOUR DADDY?” he’s not asking literally.
So… Will Sarah and Beau embark on a May-December thang? What about Jeff, who’s back in New York spazzing out about Sarah not calling him back? Does he stand a chance against the smart, handsome, accomplished, and debonair Beau? What about Katherine? What happens when she discovers that, in addition to fucking her and her daughter, Mr. Burroughs has also now bagged her granddaughter? Is Beau a stud or what? Should he give lessons? Where do I sign up?
BUT, SERIOUSLY: As I mentioned earlier, there’s a solid romance at the core of RUMOR HAS IT. Unfortunately, it gets muddled by the various plot elements competing for attention. Ultimately, the clever conceit of the “true rumor” that the story is based on runs out of gas halfway through the film, and the interesting relationship that develops between Beau and Sarah is shunted aside just when it starts to take off.
I suppose RUMOR HAS IT is really more of a character study of Sarah Huttinger: a successful, beautiful, smart woman who still feels something is missing from her life. Feeling dislocated from her family and fiancee, she flails about for a life raft - and thinks she finds it by investigating the “rumor” that finds its way into her life. The problem with this, though, is that when Sarah finally meets Beau and finds out he’s not her father, the movie doesn’t know where to go. The cleverness of the premise can only go so far.
This isn’t to say, though, that nothing of interest happens after we realize that Beau isn’t related to Sarah. In fact, the sole reason this film doesn’t rate lower is because of the very interesting dynamic that Beau and Sarah have. Sarah is clearly someone who needs to mature and appreciate what she has in life. Beau is someone who has seen a lot and has attained a lot of worldy sophistication and life wisdom, while still holding to a haunting kindness. One of the best scenes in the film is when he shares some of his beliefs with Sarah. It also helps that Costner and Aniston seriously click together. Once you get past the initial unpleasantness of the fact that she used to think he might be her father, you start to realize that these two make a wonderful pair. He’s an older man who likes to take care of someone, and she’s a younger woman who needs to be taken care of. It’s a great potential May-December romance.
Costner once again proves how easily he can hold the screen. He turns Beau Burroughs into something of a glamorous and studly dork. Slouching, self-deprecating, stubborn, and gentle, this is a guy that you would love to have for a father - or a lover. You can see why Sarah would be drawn to him in a more romantic way, so soon after clearing up the whole paternity issue.
I’ve always liked Jennifer Aniston. Much has been made about her ability (or purported lack of) to hold the silver screen, with her presence allegedly more suited for the smaller one, as with the FRIENDS series. Personally, I have always found her compelling to watch. Beautiful in a girl next door way, but relatable in a sisterly-buddy way, Aniston’s strength has always been playing everywomen, which Sarah is. In essence, RUMOR HAS IT is about Sarah’s “quarter-life” crisis, and Aniston’s performance (in addition to Costner’s) is what keeps us engaged.
Unfortunately, the film has an agenda of its own, and it is to milk that connection to THE GRADUATE as much as it can, at the expense of good ground it has made in the interim. As I already mentioned, that premise can only hold so much water before it starts leaking. It also doesn’t help that, aside from Costner and Aniston’s engaging performances, almost everyone else in the movie is not as effective.
Shirley MacLaine overplays Katherine’s bitchy insouciance, and her delivery of some her character’s cutting dialogue falls flat. Then again, that might be the fault of the dialogue itself. Still, I found myself wishing they would’ve cast another actress like Meryl Streep. Mark Ruffalo is merely okay as Jeff, but then again that might the fault of the character himself. Compared to Beau, Jeff is such a vanilla bore that you can’t help but pray Sarah goes the May-December route instead. Mena Suvari as Annie is, again, adequate but not compelling. In fact, she's kind of irritating. Not sure if Annie was written this way or if Suvari, just like McLaine, went over-the-top with the character to ill-effect.
The only member of the supporting cast who almost rises to the level of Aniston and Costner is Richard Jenkins as Sarah’s real father. He has some nice scenes with Aniston towards the end of the film that remind us of what an expressive actor he is. It also helps that his character is given more opportunities in the script to shine - and he doesn’t fumble them.
All in all, RUMOR HAS IT is an average film that is saved by Kevin Costner and Jennifer Aniston’s lovely chemistry and performances. While its premise may be very clever at first glance, it is ultimately not enough to sustain the film. Thank goodness for the two leads’ charms. Otherwise, this would’ve sank like a stone…
