Looking Out To Sea

But not wanky French cinema. Just a little romantic comedy which goes by the appalling long-form title of How to Get Married and Stay Single. Or just I Do. Premise was quite simple: middle-aged man doesn’t want to get married, but his matriarchal family take the decision for him and start setting him up lots of dates with women desperate to marry. He decides the only way to put the issue to rest will be to get jilted — so he arranges for someone to act as his girlfriend and charm his family, then fail to show up at the ceremony.

Obviously it doesn’t all go to plan: neither his family nor the “couple” react in the way his scheme had intended. The two-dimensionality of the plot and the character types isn’t a hindrance because the two leads are so thoroughly in control. It’s almost like the flatness of the background brings out the humour of the situation, like the endless variations on the “template” jokes:

“How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?” “A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question.”

Sorry, that was unnecessary. But the film, that was good.

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