The Critic's Corner #2

Rumor Has It
Warner Bros.
PG-13
97 minutes
available on DVD

Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Shirley MacLaine, Mark Ruffalo

Jennifer Aniston leads an all-star cast in this romantic comedy from director Rob Reiner. Recently engaged, aspiring journalist Sarah Huttinger (Aniston) still isn't sure what she wants from life. But on her way home to attend her sister's wedding, Sarah meets an Internet billionaire (Kevin Costner) who reveals some long-buried secrets about Sarah's family that put a whole new spin on her past – and may change the direction of her future.

It's hard to imagine that a movie with a cast like this could be anything but terrific. Sadly, it just didn't quite live up to my expectations. Individually, the performances of the lead actors weren't really all that bad, although Aniston's character was too much of a train wreck to make her sympathetic. Ruffalo, if somewhat two-dimensional, was his usual puppy-dog cute, Costner in a tux sparks an approving lift of my left eyebrow every time, and Shirley MacLaine effused with her customarily caustic wit. Collectively, however, this cast just didn't jive at all.

There was so little chemistry between Aniston and her two leading men (Ruffalo and Costner) that I kept wondering what the casting director was thinking. Any spark that one would expect to be there between a sexy older guy like Costner and a sexy younger woman like Aniston just ... well, wasn't. MacLaine's portrayal of Aniston's grandmother reminded me a little too much of her role in Mrs. Winterbourne, a movie I rank as one of my favorites.

While the premise of Rumor Has It had potential, the script was flat and uninspired. I thought I was going to scream if one more person said, "Can I ask you a question?" (I think every character had that line at one point or another.)

The best part of the whole movie was the ending, but the last two minutes were so predictable that the emotion from the film's one truly good scene (between Sarah and her father) was lost – I feel sure that the only tears in the place were in Aniston's eyes. Normally stuff like that just chokes me up, but this time it just didn't do anything for me. I actually told my daughter, who was watching the movie with me, exactly what was going to happen. And, of course, it did.

As I was reading some of the comments on the movie's profile on Netflix, I discovered I wasn't alone in my disappointment. This movie could have gone the way of the dodo bird and the world wouldn't have missed a thing.