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| Catch and Release |
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  (6/10)
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Runtime: 113 |
| Public Rating: 6.50 (4 votes) |
Director: Susannah Grant |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Romantic Comedy/Drama |
Year: 2007 |
| Writer(s): Susannah Grant |
| Distributor: Sony Pictures |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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Written and directed by Susannah Grant (In Her Shoes, Erin Brockovich, 28 Days, Ever After), Catch and Release is a romantic comedy/drama starring Jennifer Garner (Alias, Electra, Daredevil) and co-starring writer-director-sometime-actor Kevin Smith (Clerks I and II, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Dogma). Although admirable for Grant's desire to mix conventions and try to come up with something original, Catch and Release has all the hallmarks of a first-time directing working from his or her screenplay; it's too long, too contrived, and has too many subplots and characters. But it also has more than a few character moments that ring true and solid performances (more or less) from a game cast.
Boulder, Colorado. Only a few days from her wedding, Gray Wheeler (Jennifer Garner) loses her fiancé, Grady, to a tragic boating accident. Gray takes comfort from Grady's best friends, Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), a womanizing, LA-based commercials director, Dennis (Sam Jaeger), Grady's partner in a fish-and-bait shop, and Sam (Kevin Smith), an employee of herbal-tea manufacturer, Celestial Seasonings. Grady, Dennis, and Sam shared a place together. Fritz is up from LA for the funeral. Suddenly short on cash, facing eviction, and apparently short on friends, Gray temporarily moves in with Dennis and Sam. Rather than return to LA, Fritz decides to hang around, crashes first in Grady's old room and later on the living room sofa.
Gray soon discovers, however, that Grady wasn't what he seemed. He had more money than he let on, but without a legal marriage, Gray won't inherit his small fortune. That's not particularly important for the grieving Gray, who doesn't seem to notice her effect on the men around, Dennis, who openly pines for her, and Fritz, a superficial womanizer who becomes increasingly attracted to Gray. Sam doesn't so much pine for Gray as mourn through copious amounts of alcohol and prescription drugs. Grady's past contains more than one secret. Enter Maureen (Juliette Lewis), a dyed-blonde massage therapist from LA with New Age pretensions.
Susannah Grant, a screenwriter (Erin Brockovich) turned writer-director, is obviously talented, but seems to have lost the objectivity necessary to eliminate or trim overlong, redundant scenes and subplots. Catch and Release is unnecessarily convoluted, overlong and stuffed with contrived plot turns. On a story level, it's difficult to understand why Grant included the Dennis character. Lovelorn and forlorn, Dennis pines not-so-secretly for Gray. Only Sam seems to notice, but sidesteps the "Do you love her?" discussion for no apparent reason except to save it for a late film plot turn (the hide-your-feelings moment). As a character, Dennis is, at best, superfluous, at worst, proves the adage that "Nice guys do finish last."
Jennifer Garner gives a credible performance as Gray Wheeler. She's at her best early on, when her character's passivity is a function of the deeply held grief she's experiencing. Later, Garner has more difficult navigating through Gray's emotional changes, but that's more a function of Grant's increasingly contrived plot turns and less Garner's performance. As the ostensible romantic lead, Timothy Olyphant relies too much on his toothy smile and not enough on the other facets of good acting, e.g., facial expressions, body language. Again though, Grant lets Olyphant down, leaving too much of his ostensible character growth offscreen (he is, after all, a womanizer, but a few short days in Gray's presence, convinces him to mend his ways).
Sad to say, Kevin Smith is less, far less, amusing here than he has been in his own films (or in appearances at comic-book conventions where he's proven himself the raconteur). Smith insisted on selecting his own clothes (his favorite number, "37" appears everywhere). Likewise with the telltale references to the Star Wars franchise (ok, actually two references, one scene, but that's really enough). Worse, Smith's comic timing seems a bad fit for a mainstream romantic comedy/drama (Smith's penchant for peppering his monologues with F-bombs have been relegated to a parallel universe). Sorry Mr. Smith, but there's only room for one rotund, slightly hip, slightly cool funny man in contemporary film and his name is Black, Jack Black.
© Mel Valentin, 26th January, 2007
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