Lessons In Love review: Brosnan fails to ignite this very disappointing romantic comedy.
Lessons In Love review
Pierce Brosnan headlines this new ‘comedy’ from Tom Vaughan, a filmmaker who cut his teeth as a director on British TV with the likes of the excellent, and indeed ground-breaking Cold Feet, before hitting gold with his feature debut Starter For Ten; one of the best British movies to be released back in 2006. Here, in a film that was released Stateside as Some Kind Of Beautiful, Vaughan delivers one of the biggest duds of the year; an clichéd mess of a movie that fails on pretty much every level.
Brosnan plays Richard Haig, a Cambridge professor who impregnates one of his students (played by Jessica Alba), and so moves to Los Angeles to a new life just before their son is born. Things don’t turn out all that well for the new couple, and they separate a few years after the birth of their child, after Alba’s character, Kate, falls for another man. Also along for the ride is Salma Hayek’s older sister to Kate, Olivia, who, following the breakdown of her relationship to a popular writer, slowly starts to fall for Brosnan’s serial womanizer.
Lessons In Love review
Brosnan has proved that he can do comedy so well, even as recently as The Love Punch, a couple of years back, but a lot of what is on offer in this latest offering, falls very flat. A paint-by-numbers romantic comedy, Lessons In Love grates all of the way through, with its very predictable plot, clichéd characters and countless unfunny and indeed ridiculous comedic set-pieces. Then there’s Malcolm McDowell in possibly one of the most ridiculous roles to date. McDowell plays the role of Haig’s father, complete with northern accent in a totally misogynistic, and frankly unbelievable and indeed unlikable part as an ageing Lothario.
The problem with this film is that there’s no real plot to draw the viewer in. It’s a complete mess from start to finish, full of characters which we don’t care enough about, except for Brosnan, who is perhaps the only redeeming feature of the film. While there is obviously a message hidden amongst the story, which does naturally rear its head towards the end of the third reel, it can’t explain the existence of this very, very disappointing, and frankly remarkably ridiculous movie from an otherwise competent filmmaker..
Lessons In Love review by Paul Heath, September 2015.
Lessons In Love is released in UK cinemas on Friday 25th September 2015.
