January 10, 2003 | There’s nothing wrong with Just Married that a major script rewrite, several fresh plot twists and maybe a couple of tranquilizer darts couldn’t fix.
Come to think of it, a more amusing beginning also would help.
During the opening scenes of this strained neo-screwball comedy, we’re introduced to newlyweds Tom (Ashton Kutcher) and Sarah (Brittany Murphy) as they return from an absolutely wretched European honeymoon. They snipe and snarl at each other as they stride through Los Angeles Airport, and occasionally do minor physical damage to each other. (Thanks to him, she spills coffee on the front of her blouse; miraculously, the stain is gone in the very next shot.) By the time he drops her off at her parents’ palatial home, the question isn’t “Can this marriage be saved?” Rather, it’s more like, “Geez, which one will wind up killing the other?”
The mood turns lighter, slightly, when Tom – a late-night radio traffic reporter – takes a break at work for a lengthy flashback. We see the couple “meet cute,” instantly fall in love, and decide to tie the knot after nine months of living together. “I had the perfect relationship,” Tom recalls, “that was ruined by marriage.”
Mind you, there are a couple of distressing portents mixed in with the lovey-dovey stuff: Tom initially attracts Sarah’s attention by accidentally pelting her with a football, and later (again, accidentally) causes the death of her pet dog. Still, despite these danger signs, despite the socioeconomic differences between them – she’s a rich Wellesley art student; he’s a blue-collar community college grad – and despite her snooty family’s grave misgivings, they marry. And then, alas, they have the honeymoon from hell.
Their trip begins unpromisingly during their disastrous attempt to have sex in a jetliner lavatory. It’s pretty much downhill after that, as the newlyweds get kicked out of a French Alps hotel for frying the electrical circuits – don’t ask how they do it, you don’t want to know – and then crash through the wall of a seedy Venetian pensione. Along the way, they wreck their tiny rental car, scream at each other a lot, make unpleasant discoveries about each other, scream at each other some more, and generally bring out the worst in each other.
Throughout the movie, logic is, at best, a sometime thing. Even after nine months of living with Tom, and presumably learning something about his limited appreciation for high culture, Sarah is shocked – shocked, I tell you! — when he announces that, rather than accompany her on a tour of Venetian art museums, he’d really rather watch a ballgame at a bar catering to American tourists.
Listen closely, and you’ll hear the sound of grinding plot mechanics: Peter (Christian Kane), Sarah’s wealthy ex-boyfriend, just happens to be in Venice on business, and he’s very eager to take advantage when the newlyweds go their separate ways for the afternoon.
Director Shawn Levy (Big Fat Liar) manages an egregiously perverse type of reverse alchemy in Just Married, transforming his two normally appealing leads into shrill and unsympathetic squabblers. He encourages Kutcher and Murphy to act at the top of their lungs — which they do, alas, with unseemly enthusiasm. This is where the tranquilizer darts might have come in handy.
Screenwriter Sam Harper has claimed he based Just Married on misadventures he and his wife endured on their own honeymoon. And, indeed, if you’re willing to wade through the silly contrivances and broad, borderline-sadistic slapstick, you may enjoy a few tickling shocks of recognition during the movie, especially if you’ve ever discovered how little you know your partner – and how easily you can drive each other crazy — during an extended, ill-starred trip.
On the other hand, it’s fairly obvious that Harper supplemented his real-life experiences with events recycled from dozens of other, much better movies about naïve young Americans traipsing about Old Europe. Of course, it’s quite possible that most of the teens and twentysomethings in the movie’s target demographic have never seen those movies. But, then again, you don’t have to know how much of a movie is second-hand to recognize it as second-rate.
