REVIEW: How Do You Know

LOVE AND OTHER PROBLEMS

 The title How Do You Know (without the question mark!) is asked by a chronic womanizer to a buddy -- as in, how do you know when it is love. The answer is not fit to print. The film is surprisingly bland, coming from James L. Brooks, who has made successful films like As Good As It Gets, Broadcast News and Terms of Endearment.

What is even more disappointing is that the once great star Jack Nicholson (who has worked with the director in the past in better films) has been given such a poorly-written role. The most boring scenes are the ones on which he appears.

The three leads are one-dimensional and just not interesting enough. A softball player Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) is dropped from the team for being overage. She is devastated (as if it’s the first time it happened to a player), but shuns sympathy from her teammates and help from a therapist. She doesn’t need sensitivity, she says, and falls headlong into an affair with baseball player Matty (Owen Wilson), who is the kind of guy who keeps spare toothbrushes and women’s clothing in various sizes in his cupboard, for his one-nighters. He is self-obsessed and incapable of fidelity but in his own way, he is sweet and understanding.

For some reason, he falls in love with whining Lisa, and invites her to move in. She has, by this time, also had a blind date with George (Paul Rudd), who is in deep trouble for the financial  irregularities his father Charles (Jack Nicholson) committed and wants to pin on to the son.

It is kind of clear, that the two losers will gravitate toward each other, but it takes a lot of time and a great deal of talk (peppered with inspirational one-liners  like “we are all just one small adjustment away from making our lives work.”) The subplot about George’s secretary is inane and a scene in the hospital involving her is cringe making.

It’s okay for characters in movies to have problems -- whether or not they manage to overcome them -- but it is tedious for the viewer to have to sit through a film in which the characters obsess relentlessly over trivialities. This is supposed to a romcom, and only the sunny Owen Wilson manages to evoke a smile or two -- like when he fusses over feeding Lisa and prepares a bowl of cereal with great flourish!