Far from a Perfect Romance
Tess Kelley (Kathleen Quinlan) is concerned for her daughter Jenny (Lori Heuring) as despite being divorced from her irresponsible husband she hasn't moved on and found love again. So behind Jenny's back Tess sets up a profile on a dating website where she starts corresponding with Peter (Henry Ian Cusick), an English professor who having arrived in America because of love is dumped by his girlfriend. After corresponding for some time Peter and Jenny agree to meet which means Tess has to come clean to her daughter about what she has been up to and to make matters worse the Jenny Tess has pretended to be online is nothing like the real one.
I'm a sucker for a good romantic comedy; it doesn't even need to be that original as long as it has energy, humour and some romance to carry it through. Unfortunately "Perfect Romance" didn't do it for me, it struggled to make me smile or laugh, in fact at times it felt more boring than watching paint dry. But I guess that I'm not in the target audience for "Perfect Romance" as it seems to be orientated towards a female audience for those who will go gooey at a cliche English accent. In fairness I like the actual idea to "Perfect Romance" and it evolves into something which is genuinely a fun idea with an amusing twist.
But unfortunately "Perfect Romance" is devoid of life, there is no energy to any of it and that makes it incredibly hard going. No matter how many good ideas they come up with, from scenes surrounding Jess being a terrible cook to her whole attempt to sound educated they never pay off because there is no spark to it. The closest it gets to a spark is an amusing chat up scene early on in a bar where Peter tries to chat up a beautiful woman talking about football and ending up in a row over what is better American Football or what the rest of the World know as Football.
But as I said at the start whilst I am a fan of romantic comedies "Perfect Romance" seems to have been made for a very specific audience who find a slightly bumbling English academic with a very cliche English accent attractive. Thankfully Henry Ian Cusick doesn't copy either Hugh Grant or Colin Firth but it is very much in that sort of manner and that does absolutely nothing for me. In fact the best performance comes from Kathleen Quinlan as Tess and watching her girlishly blush around Peter is lovely to watch.
What this all boils down to is that "Perfect Romance" ends up not the perfect movie for me as despite some good ideas it still ends up lifeless. I am sure it will appeal to some but if you like romantic comedies with energy then this isn't the movie for you.
