At the movies

Bearly tolerable fluff

Did You Hear About The Morgans?
DIRECTED BY: Marc Lawrence
STARRING: Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sam Elliot, Mary Steenburgen
CERT: PG

Did you hear it was rubbish? It is.
Director Marc Lawrence’s 2007 feature, Music And Lyrics, was a charming and often very funny movie. It proved, after the so-so Two Weeks’ Notice, that Lawrence could write and direct a fine romantic comedy and that he could get the best out Hugh Grant.
So you’d be forgiven for thinking a jolly time was guaranteed when he teamed up again with Grant for this fish-out-of-water comedy. Unfortunately, the skills that served him so well last time out seem to have abandoned him entirely. And Grant’s own formidable charms have done a legger, too.
Grant and Parker play Paul and Meryl Morgan, a successful (meaning mostly fast-moving and stressed) New York couple who’ve separated on account of his recent fling. He’s trying to win her back and eventually, after much fast-moving and stressful convolution, manages to persuade her to join him for what he hopes will be the big reconcilliation dinner.
But that notion gets spannered when they witness one of Meryl’s real estate clients being murdered and, before they flee the scene, the killer sees them doing the witnessing.
They soon learn that the recently-departed was a witness in a case against a big bad arms dealer, whose henchman will no doubt be turning up soon to take care of these new witnesses. And so the Feds decide the best thing all round is to put the Morgans in the witness protection program and pack them off to Wyoming.
My wife spent part of her childhood in Wyoming and assures me that if you want to send someone to the middle of nowhere, with no hope of ever being found again in this lifetime, then Wyoming is the correct address. And the Feds clearly agree.
But the Morgans don’t quite fit in among the gun-totin’, rodeo-lovin’ rednecks and the strange animal life with which they are surrounded. The cattle and the horses. And of course, the bears.
And they don’t know what to make of their hosts, Clay and Emma Wheeler (Elliot and Steenburgen), the cowboy sheriff and his gun-loving deputy. And being creatures of the gadget, they are lost entirely in this technological wilderness.
But naturally the locals just love these visitor folk (the way all rural natives just adore obnoxious twits from the city) and make them feel just as welcome as can be. And wouldn’t you know it, before long…
Well, you know what happens. The Morgans realise they haven’t really been living at all. They begin to appreciate the small, simple things in life. They rediscover the twinkle in each other’s eye. They make eejits of themselves on a regular basis for the amusement of the hicks and they even grow to love the middle of nowhere. (Ah, but wait till winter, says the woman who knows.) But wait – is that the bad guy turning up out of the blue to put a damper on all this harmless country fun? How did you know?
Because you’ve seen this a hundred times before and most of the time you’ve seen it done better. For whatever reason, Lawrence’s script is shockingly lazy (bears, cow suits and Sarah Palin jokes – oh stop, my sides!) and his two leads have never been so lifeless and devoid of charm. Which is saying something, considering Parker’s screen history.
Mary Steenburgen is always a pleasure to watch but she must be getting weary of playing the country bumpkin wife. And after stealing this poor excuse for a show and turning up for all of two minutes with George Clooney in Up In The Air, the great Sam Elliot must be wondering when someone is going to come along and hand him and his excellent moustache a leading role.