I’m quite surprised to read all the awful reviews about this movie. I thought it was great.

Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, a romance, or rather romantic comedy. I expected the standard formula: girl meets boy, girl falls madly in love, boy rejects girl, girl follows boy across the country (ok, that parts not so standard) various mishaps lead boy to have epiphany: “I was wrong, I do love you, quirky weirdness, lousy job and all.” Love, hugs, kisses, marriage, the end. Bleh.

What I got instead was a funny, interesting movie full of characters I feel I know all too well. And a happy, yet unpredictable ending.

First, we have Mary Magdalene Horowitz (Sandra Bullock), a beautiful, sexy woman whose beauty is marred by her incessant chatter about trivial things. She reminds me very much of my son: full of useless, yet correct knowledge, and always happy to talk about it (as I’m writing this he’s saying “in fact, did you know the jumping spider has big eyes so it can judge distances?”). She’s hyper, she’s “quirky” and she wears high-heeled red patent-leather boots every single day. She lives with her parents and has no life outside her work as a crossword-puzzle writer, her parents, and her pet hamster.

Mary’s parents set her up on a blind date with Steve, a CNC news cameraman.  Mary falls head over heels for him, and takes an offhand remark by him (in an attempt to get rid of her!) as a declaration of love and an invitation to come with him on his job.  She ends up following him through several states, convinced she’s the one for him.  The tragic peril scene of the movie, which in most romantic comedies would bring on the aforementioned epiphany (she falls into an abandoned mine shaft, and comes close to dying, along with a little girl trapped with her) ends with the stalkee, Steve, finding not love, but respect.  She’s not the one for him, but she’s not a weirdo, a dork, a reject, or a loser.  She’s an amazing, unique, smart person, and she needs the freedom to be who she is and to continue marching to the syncopated rhythm of that crazy, offbeat drummer shes been following all her life.

She doesnt necessarily need marriage and babies to make her happy.  She has friends who love her, and she’s happy with herself the way she is.  Why should she change anything?  The love story in this movie is how she can love herself.  Who should have the right to mess with that?  Some of us don’t fit formulas.  It’s good to kow that there are movies for the rest of us.