FROM THE BUCKET REVIEWS ARCHIVE

Review: Just Go With It

Danny Baldwin · February 12, 2011

While many of my fellow critics would scoff at the idea of judging a film based on how it performs in reference to one’s personal expectations because doing so lends to a biased reaction, I don’t think this is a problem when the film in question stars Adam Sandler. The highly successful comedian has built an empire around his persona, “opening” movies like no other star in Hollywood. In other words, when you decide you want to go see an Adam Sandler picture, it’s almost always because you like Adam Sandler, which is not so even with bigger stars working in the drama genre, like George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Because the idea of an “Adam Sandler movie” is so concrete and specific in the popular conscious, I don’t think it is wrong to criticize the actor’s efforts as they relate to common perception of what they are and/or should be. Thus, this will be less a typical review and more an analysis of which elements of Just Go with It are the same and which are different from those of other entries in Sandler’s oeuvre.

The unexpectedly positive / what’s better than usual:

1. Brooklyn Decker. Two words that signify complete captivation for every heterosexual male and probably most females in the audience. With its unoriginal story and one-dimensional characters, Just Go with It probably would have been damn near insufferable without Ms. Decker, but instead it is consistently involving if only because viewers are allowed long, uninterrupted stares at the sheer perfection of this woman. Previously relegated to the pages of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, one’s sense of lust is here confounded with a moving, talking version, which may be more than some can handle. Cynics–AKA those same fellow critics I mentioned in the opening–would detest the very idea that a movie could actually be made better for the physical attractiveness of its star. After all, there are plenty of godawful films that feature attractive people. But I would suggest that very few ascend to the level of Decker. Furthermore, she has a downright magnetic screen presence if I’ve ever seen one, almost certainly signaling a future film career. Maybe if she takes on a project that is better written than this one, we’ll discover Decker is actually a fine actress, too.

2. A dramatic reduction in the number of poo-poo ca-ca jokes. Sandler and writers Allan Loeb and Timothy Dowling were presumably forced to limit the crude antics usually found in the actor’s films in order to market Just Go with It as a Valentine’s Day romantic-comedy for both sexes, and this approach could not be more welcome. There is one notable physical gag involving a character’s bodily functions, but against all odds, it’s actually reasonably funny and thus shouldn’t bother many. After being bombarded with Sandler’s most immature antics to date in last year’s atrocious Grown Ups, I was so pleased to see that they toned down the crap (literally).

3. Despite its predictable plot, the film is unique in that it doesn’t painfully overextend its climax in the tradition of most modern romantic-comedies. Spoiler-warning for the intellectually-infantile few of you who can’t predict a Sandler film… The basic story is that his Danny, a middle-aged forever-bachelor plastic surgeon, habitually scores with women by pretending he’s in an awful marriage with an abusive wife. (Trust me: this is about the least improbable thing about Just Go with It, which boasts a title that could not offer viewers more fitting advice.) But Danny’s plan doesn’t work when he truly falls for the years-younger Palmer (Decker) over a beach-set one-night stand. (Yes, the film assumes someone like Decker would choose Sandler as a sex partner — again, just go with it.) When they awake, she discovers his prop wedding ring in his jeans-pocket and refuses to pursue a relationship with him. Realizing Palmer is something special, Danny concocts a crazy plan in which his nurse Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) pretends she is his soon-to-be ex-wife, even dragging her kids into the mix. They all end up on an Hawaiian vacation, where Danny inevitably discovers it isn’t Palmer who he loves, but the age-appropriate woman who has been standing before him all along… Katherine.

So, yes, all that is the kind of stuff you’d expect from your average Hollywood rom-com. But get this: even after Palmer and Danny stupidly decide to wed in Hawaii despite his changing feelings, there is no strung-out sequence of them standing on the altar, allowing Katherine to barge in for obligatory “spontaneous” drama. No, the film is much subtler than that, wrapping itself up in a tidy, quick fashion that gives mass audiences what they want without making a production of it. It is even elegant in certain strokes. For instance, instead of forcing any kind of boring onscreen split between Danny and Palmer, the film simply allows him to explain the sudden break-up to Katherine… then wrapping things up with Palmer in a funny cameo-scene featuring Decker’s real-life husband, tennis player Andy Roddick. The final 20 minutes of Just Go with It easily rank as the best thing frequent Sandler collaborator Dennis Dugan has ever directed, an encouraging if not exactly hard-to-attain proclamation.

4. The movie looks fantastic. While never upstaging Decker in the eye-candy department, this is one of very few visually accomplished Sandler comedies. Shot on Sony’s HD CineAlta camera, it is, in its own way, just as much a testament to the advantages of shooting digitally as high-tech action flicks like Avatar and Takers are. One might think the classic 35mm look best suits high-key cinema sitcoms like this, but the CineAlta’s bright capture of the beautiful Hawaiian setting is a convincing argument that HD has a real place in the genre.

Unfortunately, the key piece of the usually-subpar Sandler package remains intact, and boy is it as crummy as ever…

Aside from its inventive third-act wrap-up (which is likely strong more thanks to direction than to writing, anyway), the script completely and utterly blows. First off, the premise defies even Sandler’s usual sense of ridiculousness and reaches a level of downright stupidity. It is supposedly adapted from a French play, but I would be willing to bet it doesn’t resemble the source at all. Typically, silly comedies like this one are funny because they take elements of reality and embellish them to form hyperbole. But aside from the presence of humans and a realistic-looking world around them, there is absolutely no trace of actual life in Just Go with It. These characters don’t exist in reality and, as a result, it’s tough to play along. The entire first act is a struggle for the viewer over whether to give in and accept the premise — I ultimately did, thanks to the aforementioned redeeming elements, but it certainly wasn’t easy given I had such reason to hate the film for its atrocious screenplay.

Said screenplay’s problems don’t end with the premise and its execution, either. Making matters even worse is the equally bankrupt dialogue. There is simply nothing funny about what Loeb and Dowling wrote; the cast’s delivery is all that conjures up the modest number of laughs. For instance, only by the sheer relentlessness of Nick Swardson’s approach is a sequence in which his character resuscitates a sheep funny. Dowling and Loeb constantly try to create gags around how stupid the characters and the narrative in general are, but all this does is remind us of the material’s inadequacies.

Lastly, it should be noted that two key performances in the film don’t really work: those of Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman (who is interestingly nowhere to be found in the marketing despite substantial screen-time). Aniston does her usual schtick, which by now is about just as manufactured as Sandler’s, but nowhere near as warm. Where she should be the emotional heart of the movie (hah!), she is inert. Given the dull predictability of Katherine’s fate with Danny, one would have hoped for a performance that could at least enliven the proceedings by being charming. But that exceeds Aniston’s grasp here, for she has clearly been in one too many just-for-the-paycheck rom-coms since her last meaty performance in 2002’s The Good Girl. Kidman is just as cold playing Katherine’s college sorority nemesis Devlin, who just so happens to be vacationing at the same Hawaiian resort. A hula competition between the two, reigniting old rivalry, is cringe-inducing as a one-two punch of bad writing and even worse comic acting.

Alas, Just Go with It is decidedly mediocre, mid-pack Sandler — rancid in many of the usual ways, but exceptional in enough select areas to wind up mostly tolerable. As far as gender-nonspecific, mainstream Valentine’s Day outings go, it’s fine despite its considerable flaws. That said, it is probably telling that the entire time I have been writing this review, all I have thought about is Brooklyn Decker emerging from the ocean in a bikini. Without that scene, I probably would not have been nearly as forgiving toward the film.

* * *

Just Go with It (2011, USA). Produced by Barry Bernardi, Allen Covert, Jack Giarraputo, Tim Herlihy, Steve Koren, Heather Parry, and Adam Sandler. Directed by Dennis Dugan. Written for the screen by Allan Loeb and Timothy Dowling, based on various source material by I.A.L. Diamond, Abe Burrows, Pierre Barillet, Jean-Pierre Grédy. Starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Brooklyn Decker, Nicole Kidman, Nick Swarson, Bailee Madison, and Griffin Gluck. Distributed by Columbia Pictures. Rated PG-13, with a running time of 116 minutes.