The perils of online dating are the subject of today’s installment, Anything for Love, starring a post-Traffic and Parenthood Erika Christensen, and some guy. She’s a high-powered CEO Catherine Benson, with no time for love, and a odd relationship with her assistant who was the lead in Cooking for Love, I think. The guy is Jack, a registered nurse who gets no respect or love or any action because he’s not a doctor.
This also starts off with Catherine in the bestest, most amazing closet ever. I will not fake it – I am SUPER closet envious right now. I’m not a high-powered CEO in Chicago, but don’t I deserve a closet that is basically the same size as my bedroom? Yes. Yes, I do.
Catherine has a steady “dad-approved” man she has dinner with sometimes, named Charles. He’s smarmy, and swarthy, and unpleasant. They’ve been dinner-ing for the past 6 months, and he wants to be her Friday night / Sunday Brunch Go-To-Guy, and gives her diamond earrings to seal this deal. It’s just sad that a) he would settle for something so dumb and b) that after he basically lays a huge, assault-like kiss on her face, she still has to be polite and say she’ll consider his offer, instead of punching him in the face for doing something that is obviously, from the acting talents of Ms. Christensen, so distasteful.
She confides in her Perky Assistant that she wants to find a guy that gives her the same thrill she gets from closing a deal, a guy who wants her, and not her money or position. So Perky Assistant sets Catherine up on a new dating website but with her own identity, as “Debbie, the Executive Assistant.” In the meantime, Jack’s dumbass orderly friend Reggie is a man with obviously a very little penis, as he lies and overcompensates a lot about what he does, and hijacks Jack’s profile, calling him a doctor, and not a nurse. This is counter to what Jack says he wants, as he’s not ashamed of being a nurse, and says honesty is the way to go. But before you know it, they are liking each other online!
Catherine has her very first call with Jack on speaker phone with her assistant. Is that for filmic reasons only, because that is seriously, super dumb. She left a very important meeting to take this call, and all those suits are in the next room and can obviously hear the whole conversation!!! She is very awkward, but somehow they make plans to go out, and has to “buy jeans” to attend said date. Her Perky Assistant has talked her out of pressing them. Seriously, who irons jeans?
They end up going bowling – and all of Jack’s friends, including SmallDick Reggie, are there. She’s not very good and ends up falling in the lane, which can happen, and is painful. But she rallies and gets a strike that she obviously didn’t bowl herself. The magic of editing. But they are so happy at the end of their date – even though he calls her Debbie.
As they talk, he asks her what she does, and when she says she works for the President of the company, he automatically assumes it’s a dude, and when corrected, his next question is, is she married? Why is that an okay line of dialogue for a movie geared to women? Are we going to have another one of those she can have either a career or love but not both scripts here? Because I will not be pleased.
The next day, he sends her pretty daisies, and Dad-Approved Charles sent her 2 dozen red roses. Which one does she like the best? Guess. But Dad blows in, and insults the daisies because he’s a flower snob. That night, he shows up at her office for an impromptu dinner, and Perky Assistant, now pretending to be the big boss, practically shoves her out the door. They end up in a place that serves BBQ but has no forks. Fussy Catherine doesn’t know how to eat without a fork, and Jack has to give her lessons.
Then they walk outside and he invites her up to his cabin in the woods. It’s their second date. STAY OUT OF THE FOREST! But she’s charmed by it, and they have a rare, mid-movie kiss! Then she gets an allergic reaction to either the BBQ sauce, or his kiss, and he tells her to take some Benedryl – 10mg every four hours, no more, no less! and it comes out that she thinks he’s a doctor, and before you can say SPIT IT OUT, HONESTY MAN, Jack … does not. She’s so pretty, and he just can’t disappoint someone so pretty by coming clean and saying he’s a registered nurse instead of an obstetrician.
So, you know that she’s in love, because workaholic Catherine goes into the office but then leaves after only 5 minutes. In the meantime, Nurse Jack is taking care of a sulky teenager who calls him “Loser” because he’s not a doctor. Great kid, always on his video game device, and has no parents to visit him during the day. But, because he’s, like, Saint Nurse, he encourages the kid to read, and gives him his own copy of Catcher in the Rye. Now, I slowed down the film at this point, because the book shown looks like no copy of Catcher that I’ve ever seen. And I would just like to point out that it is not Catcher in the Rye, but some other book. So, why would a movie skimp out on something so minor? Not sure if this is a Salinger – Don’t Use My Stuff move, (although by this time, JD is dead) or did no one think it necessary to spend the $8.95 to get a real copy of this book? What’s up, Set Designer and Prop Guy??
Cut to Catherine and Jack going away for the weekend to his cabin in the woods. Horror movie plot, if ever I heard one. They both resolve to tell each other the truth, but it’s hard to do, you know? Charles sees her leave in Jack’s Jeep. Uh oh!
Out in the wilderness, Catherine and Jack are in a canoe, and he gives her an engraved key chain – but of course it is misspelled – his name is now Jake. Don’t you know you have to check the stuff you get engraved before you leave the store?? But they are thinking it’s so cute and then they capsize the canoe.
When they are nice and dry and drinking cocoa, they basically try to confess, but they don’t, and he gives her a great speech about he loves everything about her, her essence, her soul, her gist. He actually says FOR REALS that he likes her gist. Yup. That’s a line of dialogue that is in this movie. Someone got paid to write that. Then, after the loudest kiss imaginable, she actually laughs at him for using that word. But the travesty of the line is still out there, and we can never get it back. But after all of that, they don’t sleep together because this is Hallmark, not Harlequin.
In the morning, we find out that Catherine’s dad had a heart attack and now all the action moves to Jack’s hospital, where she still thinks he’s a doctor. Charles is there, being a dick, and Dad has his own sheets and pillows on his hospital bed, and he speaks on 2 different phones. He also acts like a total jerk when confronted with a male nurse. I don’t seriously get why everyone is so dismissive. He went to school and got a degree or something. Why does everyone have to be so mean about it?
Catherine tells her dad that she’s in love, but that it’s not Charles. Dad is kind of pissed about that, because even though she’s the head of a multi-million dollar corporation, he doesn’t trust her to make a decision about her love life. In the meantime, Charles shows up at Jack’s house, because a) he hired a PI to track Jack down, b) he wants to pay Jack off to leave Catherine alone and c) he is a giant tool and he sucks way more than any other character has sucked. But he also spills the beans that Catherine is Catherine, and not Debbie, the assistant, so Jack is thrown for a loop.
Jack turns it down, heads to work and basically hangs out with Catherine’s dad all day – confiding, playing chess, ignoring ALL his other patients. Dad tells Jack to come clean, because he’s basically now a love expert, a lot better than those trolls in Frozen. Long story short – there’s a hallway confrontation and Catherine is all about “you lied about being a doctor” and is not even acknowledging that she lied about being an assistant. Charles does the full-on Billy Zane from Titanic and is like “Of course she walked away from you, Nurse” and I never wanted a character to punch someone more. News flash, he doesn’t, and I am annoyed.
Since now we’re in the sad times of the movie, Catherine is being a total bitch because she’s so upset, and she basically insults her Perky Assistant, who calls her out for being a snob. And after a few different scenes with Charles being a douche, Dad finally realizes that Charles is gross, but not before Charles heads over to talk to Catherine, and tells her that he … nope, he can’t really say he loves her, but in all that awkwardness, Catherine finally realizes where she belongs, and heads back over to the hospital.
After declaring to her dad that she knows what she’s doing and that she’s in love with Jack, she gets on the freaking hospital PA system, pages him to her side, and has her whole emotional breakdown in front of everyone. Jack pages her right back, and they meet in the middle of the hallway, and voila! Kiss Kiss, Clap Clap and we’re done.
Oh Man, this was a tough one. I am not kidding. Please don’t ask me to watch this one again. I already did it once, just so you don’t have to.
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