Film Review: Just Go With It

Just Go With It. Rated M (sexual references). 116 minutes. Directed by Dennis Dugan. Screenplay by Allan Loeb and Timothy Dowling.

If this light, breezy and entirely predictable romantic comedy proves one thing, it’s that Nicole Kidman is a wonderfully entertaining comedienne (something the actress has previously proved beyond reasonable doubt in 1995’s delightful To Die For). Ms Kidman literally lights up the screen when her character ‘Devlin Adams’ makes a very welcome (if long overdue) arrival at exactly the moment where we might have been wondering how much longer we’re going to be expected to pay attention to it all.

The goings-on surrounding the bubbly Ms Kidman’s fabulous performance involve plastic surgeon Danny (Adam Sandler) and the relationship with his assistant Katherine (Jennifer Aniston). When Danny falls in love with the stunning Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), he has to pull out all the stops when she insists on meeting his soon-to-be-divorced wife and the two children to whom he is apparently devoted. Single-mom Katherine is bribed into playing the role of the ex-wife, while her two children (played with great enthusiasm by youngsters Bailee Madison and Griffin Gluck) are reluctantly cast in the roles of their pretend offspring. And so the fun and games begin.

Ms Aniston and Mr Sandler are right at home in this genre, and the sequences where Aniston reaps the retail-inspired benefits of the masquerade are great fun. A handful of the role-playing sequences are also modestly entertaining – none more so than Aniston’s arrival (filmed in slow-motion) for the trio’s first lunch meeting (pictured above).

And while Dugan (Sandler’s frequent collaborator) keeps it all moving along neatly, Just Go With It benefits mostly from its stunning Hawaii-based locations, the occasional chuckle, and Ms Kidman. Ultimately, it’s a drama and charisma-free, undemanding 116 minutes of harmless, engaging distraction – which in some cases, is precisely the reason we go to the cinema in the first place.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.