I kind of liked this movie, and wanted to like it, but somehow, it seemed like something was missing. I'm guessing the book it was based on was better, but that, with the limited time available in a movie, they weren't able to develop some aspects of the story as well as they should have.
I thought the two leads played their parts fairly well, he the charming, likable good guy and she the jaded, overprotective mom who finds herself letting her guard down for him. The two of them were certainly physically attractive enough. Did they have chemistry? A little maybe, but I felt the romance between them was a bit underdeveloped and forced. I believed the relationship between Casey and Maggie's son Jordan more than I believed the relationship between Casey and Maggie.
The whole subplot about her quasi lawyer boyfriend kind of fell flat too. I never saw him as serious competition for Casey. Heck, Maggie never even kissed him at the end of their date! And then he just faded into the woodwork, rather than providing any dramatic tension to potentially spoil Casey and Maggie's budding relationship. He just seemed like excess baggage to the plot. Also, it was kind of unbelievable the way that he just neatly resolved the other big sublot about Maggie's friend Lauren's impending divorce by dropping the case and encouraging the husband to give their marriage another try, just so he would impress Maggie.
As for the big reveal at the end, where we find out that Casey is, in fact, the same 13 year old kid she had a crush on at Lake Tahoe -- well, you could see that one coming from a mile away.
The other thing I wish they had shown more and better was his sadness at losing his wife to cancer. I never had the feeling that he cared that much about her, and he seemed all too willing to jump into a relationship with Maggie. It just seemed wrong, somehow.
This movie is a reasonably enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes of your life, but there were too many things missing for me in the story to give it a truly enthusiastic thumbs up.
I thought the two leads played their parts fairly well, he the charming, likable good guy and she the jaded, overprotective mom who finds herself letting her guard down for him. The two of them were certainly physically attractive enough. Did they have chemistry? A little maybe, but I felt the romance between them was a bit underdeveloped and forced. I believed the relationship between Casey and Maggie's son Jordan more than I believed the relationship between Casey and Maggie.
The whole subplot about her quasi lawyer boyfriend kind of fell flat too. I never saw him as serious competition for Casey. Heck, Maggie never even kissed him at the end of their date! And then he just faded into the woodwork, rather than providing any dramatic tension to potentially spoil Casey and Maggie's budding relationship. He just seemed like excess baggage to the plot. Also, it was kind of unbelievable the way that he just neatly resolved the other big sublot about Maggie's friend Lauren's impending divorce by dropping the case and encouraging the husband to give their marriage another try, just so he would impress Maggie.
As for the big reveal at the end, where we find out that Casey is, in fact, the same 13 year old kid she had a crush on at Lake Tahoe -- well, you could see that one coming from a mile away.
The other thing I wish they had shown more and better was his sadness at losing his wife to cancer. I never had the feeling that he cared that much about her, and he seemed all too willing to jump into a relationship with Maggie. It just seemed wrong, somehow.
This movie is a reasonably enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes of your life, but there were too many things missing for me in the story to give it a truly enthusiastic thumbs up.