Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Available now on Blu-ray and DVD
Demanding boss and under appreciated assistant with aspirations of becoming a writer. Yes, it sounds a little like The Devil Wears Prada though Sandra Bullock's Margaret Tate is no Miranda Priestly, nor is Bullock in Meryl Streep's league. But when it comes to romantic comedy, Bullock seems to prevail regardless of the material (All About Steve excepted).
When it is revealed that publishing whiz Margaret's visa is soon to expire and she will have to return to Canada, she forces her assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) to pose as her fiance. This allows the put upon aspiring author to buck for a raise but also get to fly home to Alaska for the weekend and his grandmother's birthday.
So the rom-com becomes a fish out of water comedy, too, with Bullock's talent for the pratfall being employed to varying degrees of success among the Alaskan locals, including Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson as her future in-laws, and Golden Girl Betty White doing another take on the batty old lady she's been reduced to of late.
More surprising is Reynolds' comic chops. Even though he started out on TV sitcom Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place, Reynold's hasn't done that much to impress me on screen. As he and Bullock flip between the traditional male and female rom-com archetypes, Reynold's gets to flex muscles both macho and vulnerable.
The Proposal doesn't go anywhere we aren't expecting it to and no doubt that's why it was so successful at the box office, here and in the US: some people just can't say no to a wedding.
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