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Film review

A quick 'Release'

Catch and Release is a frothy confection, but with so little substance  the satisfaction quickly fades.

By Marty Clear
Published January 25, 2007

Catch and Release, a romantic semicomedy with Jennifer Garner, is dripping with charm. Stunning Colorado scenery, attractive stars and likable characters make you feel warm and comfortable.

But almost as soon as you leave the theater, that feeling evaporates. You realize you've been fed fairly tasty, but ultimately empty, calories. A few hours later, you'll barely remember you've seen a movie at all.

It's not a bad movie, but it often seems at odds with itself. For every fresh plot element, there's another that's horribly hackneyed; every surprise is offset by a completely predictable development.

We meet Garner's character, oddly named Gray despite her perkiness, on the day of her fiance's funeral. He died in some undefined accident during a last-fling bachelor outing, and his funeral takes place on what was supposed to be their wedding day.

In tending to her fiance's affairs in the following days, Gray discovers that he had a whole lot of money he never mentioned, and he was supporting a young son in California. The son and his mother with whom the fiance had a long-term relationship are news to Gray and almost everyone else.

Gray's support group in her period of mourning (during which she does remarkably little actual mourning) are three of her fiance's friends: slacker Sam (Kevin Smith); business partner Dennis (Sam Jaeger), who's secretly in love with Gray; and annoying California buddy Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), whom Gray seems to dislike intensely.

If you've ever seen a romantic comedy, you'll figure out immediately which one she ends up having an affair with.

Complications arise when the fiance's paramour (Juliette Lewis) and son appear in Colorado.

Catch and Release is the directorial debut for Susannah Grant, who also wrote it. Her other estimable writing credits include Charlotte's Web and Erin Brockovich.

Her writing here is often sharp. The dialogue sounds natural, and Smith delivers a lot of mildly sardonic one-liners. All the characters (with the exception of Lewis' whacked-out New Age massage therapist) are intriguing and appealing.

But the story seems like a loose collection of subplots, with no main plot to carry them through. It's hard to know what the movie is really about. (One reason may be that the movie has been trimmed by about an hour since its original screening at a film festival last year.)

Still, this ranks as an acceptable time-killer. It's a decent snack that doesn't leave a bad aftertaste.

Review

Catch and Release

Grade: C+

Director: Susannah Grant

Screenplay: Susannah Grant

Cast: Jennifer Garner, Kevin Smith, Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, Sam Jaeger

Rating: PG-13; sexual content, language and some drug use

Running time: 110 min.

[Last modified January 24, 2007, 11:42:48]