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Alex and Emma (2003)
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Reviews Counted:129
Fresh:14
Rotten:115
Average Rating:3.8/10
Consensus: A dull and unfunny comedy where the leads fail to generate any sparks.
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: "Adam Shipley had given up on love. Art was to be his mistress. And so it was that in the summer of 1924, he took a sabbatical from Andover to write, if not the Great American Novel, certainly... "Adam Shipley had given up on love. Art was to be his mistress. And so it was that in the summer of 1924, he took a sabbatical from Andover to write, if not the Great American Novel, certainly something that would make the world sit up and take notice." Alex Sheldon (LUKE WILSON) is an author whose writer's block is the least of his problems - he also happens to be flat broke and owes Cuban loan sharks $100,000. After hanging him out the window and destroying his laptop computer, the thugs give Alex an ultimatum: pay up in 30 days or wind up dead. The only way Alex is going to get that kind of money is by finishing his novel, which is currently less than one sentence long. He's got some idea of what he wants the story to be; as he puts it, "It's about the powerlessness of being in love, how it devours the insides of a person like a deadly virus. It's a comedy." He just can't seem to get it out onto paper. Now lacking both inspiration and a laptop, Alex secures the services of opinionated stenographer Emma Dinsmore (KATE HUDSON) to help him complete the novel and get paid by his publisher in time to save his skin. The story of Adam Shipley (also portrayed by LUKE WILSON) soon begins to emerge. The fictional Adam is a romantic young writer who has been hired to tutor the children of Polina Delacroix (SOPHIE MARCEAU), a chic, gorgeous French woman in dire financial straits. The story that reveals itself is of the obsessive love that Adam develops for Polina while ignoring the potential for true love with Polina's au pair, known in successive incarnations as the stern Swede Ylva, Elsa the bawdy German, Eldora the Spanish beauty and down-to-earth American Anna, (all played by KATE HUDSON). Meanwhile, Alex and Emma spend their days and nights working together on the novel. Emma challenges his ideas at every turn, and her initially irritating but undeniably intriguing input begins to influence Alex and his story. Soon, real life begins to imitate art, and art, to imitate life. [More]
Starring: Luke Wilson, Kate Hudson, David Paymer, Sophie Marceau
Starring: Luke Wilson, Kate Hudson, David Paymer, Sophie Marceau
Director: Rob Reiner
Director: Rob Reiner
Screenwriter: Jeremy Leven
Producer: Rob Reiner, Alan Greisman, Todd Black, Elie Samaha
Composer: Marc Shaiman
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for Alex and Emma
"Alex & Emma" has a light tone of modernized '20s inflected comedy that Woody Allen would love to still be able to capture in his movies.
What is unusual about the film is that we see both the real life of the characters, and scenes from the hero's novel.
Delves into ... all the odious cliches of the romantic comedy genre, but Reiner justifies it by laughing at the ridiculousness of his own story.
Wilson is inert and lethargic... Instead of adding some comic energy and vitality to the proceedings, he seems to be sleepwalking through them.
Mesmo escrito sem maiores cuidados ou reflexões (assim como o livro de seu protagonista), o longa é ingênuo (no sentido positivo da palavra) o bastante para divertir por 90 minutos.
The tepid lead characters, housed by actors who don’t even share any chemistry, finally have nowhere to go in a film as flat as its interior dime-store novel.
With its awkward blend of postmodern literary debate and formulaic romantic comedy, Alex and Emma has the unfortunate distinction of being too intellectual for stupid people and too stupid for intellectual people.
Say, since Alex and Emma is supposed to be all about people of letters and the creative process, maybe somebody interested knows. Is lame-o all one word or hyphenated?
Seems to be a vanity vehicle for Kate Hudson. Think "Tracy Takes On," written by a big fan of Kate & Leopold who didn't want to seem too derivative.
Alex & Emma is the kind of Hollywood formula romance that announces where it's going in its first moments.
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