She's Probably Not the One

I am constantly searching for a good chick flick to enjoy, and throughout the course of my travels I’ve experienced everything on the spectrum. I’ve seen chick flicks that masqueraded as sports movies (Field of Dreams, Pride of the Yankees, Jerry Maguire), chick flicks pretending to be action films (Romancing the Stone), chick flicks for the working woman (Devil Wears Prada, American President), chick flicks for supposedly real women (Something’s Gotta Give, Bridget Jones’s Diary), chick flicks for the sports bra inclined (Bend it Like Beckham, League of their Own), chick flick from John Hughes (Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink), chick flicks that took me a second to realize were chick flicks (Knocked Up), and chick flicks with Hugh Grant (Love Actually, Notting Hill). There are probably more categories and subsections, and maybe some less offensive names, but I’m a guy writing about unknown territory so expect it to be a little crass and ignorant.

Most recently my search has led me to watch She’s the One. The film was released in 1996, and is from writer, director, and leading man Ed Burns. Burns plays Mickey Fitzpatrick, a cab driver who falls in love with one of his fares, Hope (Maxine Bahns), and marries her within twenty-four hours of meeting her. The other central character is Mickey’s brother, Francis Fitzpatrick (Mike McGlone), who is in a failing marriage and having an affair with his brother’s ex-fiancé, Heather (Cameron Diaz).

The movie starts out cute enough, as we’re introduced to the brothers’ relationship with their father (John Mahoney), which revolves around him calling them girls and giving advice from the 1950s. These guys aren’t sexist, they’re just old fashioned and not crazy about the 19^th amendment. From there the movie moves on to equally cute talk about vibrators and sex with old men, except that after thirty minutes it stopped being cute and started wearing on my nerves.

The most interesting character is Heather, who Burns ruins by constantly trying to label. In part it’s done to illustrate how the brothers only see a one dimensional person, who was just a hooker in college, while Burns is trying to prove she’s obviously so much more. Unfortunately Burns ends up writing her as just a hooker later on the film, so the character loses her edge and depth that Diaz brought in the beginning of the film, and becomes the one dimensional character that Burns had tried to prove she wasn’t.

She’s the One has some interesting stylistic elements, such as the integration of amusing flashbacks, but they’re not used enough. Unfortunately, at only ninety-six minutes the movie feels like I wasted three hours. The last hour drags on forever, as the movie rehashes themes of brotherhood and the idea of a relationship being a partnership over and over again, only to conclude nothing. The movie tries to bite off more than it can chew by trying to tackle these issues, which is almost impossible since it’s attempting to address real problems with phony people.

If you’re a die hard Ed Burns fan I’d say try on Brothers McMullen for size before you commit time to She’s the One. Overall I’d recommend skipping She’s the One, and instead watching Good Will Hunting. Good Will Hunting does a better job dealing with brotherhood, and the relationship between Minnie Driver and Matt Damon is far more realistic and endearing than the central relationship in She’s the One. For the record, I'd say Good Will Hunting is one of those chick flicks that sneaks up on you before you realize it's a chick flick.