Atlantic City Weekly

The Proposal is a cookie-cutter rom-com, but despite my critical instincts screaming at me that I didn't need these empty calories, I was eating the whole cookie and liking it. The movie sends in nearly all the clichés from the romantic comedy playbook -- marriage of convenience, opposites attract, bitch boss from hell, city girl/fish out of water setting (Alaska), wacky family dynamics, gorgeous and sweet ex-girlfriend waiting in the wings -- but it earns a ton of laughs as it travels this well-worn romantic path.

It's the casting that makes the clichés palatable. Sandra Bullock is still a champ when it comes to physical comedy, and Ryan Reynolds has been a star on the rise since his breakout turn in Definitely, Maybe last year. When you toss hilarious Betty White into the mix as the sly grandma, plus Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson as the parents of the groom-to-be and scene-stealing Oscar Nuñez as the exotic dancer from hell, The Proposal doesn't give you much time to contemplate the massive mound of clichés the cast is slogging through to find those laughs.

The Proposal's featured rom-com template is the one about a desperate foreigner having to leave the country unless she marries an American. The set-up is funny since a) her country of origin is Canada, and b) screenwriter Pete Chiarelli was seemingly inspired by The Devil Wears Prada to make book editor Margaret Tate (Bullock) as nasty and self-centered as inhumanly possible. He does, however, leave Bullock enough wiggle room to thaw out when she goes with her hubby-to-be to his Alaskan hometown.

Andrew Paxton (Reynolds) goes along with this insane scheme because he has endured Margaret's crap for years and if she goes, he goes; his career in publishing is over. Andrew reaches this conclusion despite a dogged INS agent (Denis O'Hare) who knows this engagement is a scam and is pressuring Andrew to admit it.

So it's off to Alaska for these two where his shocked family has to get used to the idea that he loves the woman he has only described with contempt and loathing.

Director Anne Fletcher, a choreographer who has found a home in the rom-com genre (she also did 27 Dresses), has a nice feel for both physical comedy (her dance background helps there), and finding those sweet moments of romantic revelation that must be believable to keep the house of clichés from collapsing. A couple of highlights include Margaret saving and then offering a puppy back to a swooping eagle in exchange for the cell phone in the bird's claws, and the already famous accidental nude scene.

Still, leave it to Betty White to pull off the biggest laughs for her "Easter egg hunt" looking for Bullock's boobs during a wedding dress fitting, and several other moments that I won't spoil by recounting here.

The Proposal is the "female laughs" counterpart to The Hangover, and, like that film, there are plenty of crossover laughs for the opposite sex.

The Proposal
**1/2
Directed by Anne Fletcher; rated PG13

To read more about movies and other topics covered by movie critic Lori Hoffman under her blog alias Moviejunkie, visit http://blogs.atlanticcityweekly.com/

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