Jack & Sarah felt like two movies combined into one, and while the result was a bit uneven, I'm still glad I watched it so I could see more of the talent of Richard E. Grant. One half of the story is a heavy drama about a man grieving for his wife who died in childbirth. He doesn't want anything to do with his baby, or with life, so he checks out and goes on a bender to forget it all. One morning he wakes up to find his daughter beside him on the mattress, without a diaper and screaming. Downstairs in the kitchen, his parents, Judi Dench and David Swift, and his mother-in-law Eileen Atkins, wait impatiently as he tries to get the baby's crying to stop. It's a very moving scene (and it's very self-less of the grandparents to force him to become a father instead of just raising the baby themselves), to see him accept his new life and fatherhood.
The other half of the story is an awkward '90s romantic comedy that feels out of place. Richard wants to get a nanny for the baby so he can go back to work, and instead of employing his mother or mother-in-law, he finds a waitress in a diner and decides she's the best mother substitute. It's so ludicrous; the first impression of Samantha Mathis is her temper flaring when a customer pinches her bottom. Her boss fires her for being rude and she leaves in a huff. What if she's a volatile person? What if her boss tracks her down (which he does later) and is a bad influence? What if she's not maternal or qualified in the least but happened to coo and compliment the baby because she wanted a big tip? It turns out, she doesn't even know how to change a diaper. She knows nothing - which is really incongruous with the story. Richard is supposed to be the floundering parent; why should his nanny also be clueless?
But it's worth it to see the dramatic parts of the story. Ironically, and realistically, Richard's parents are very cold towards him even though his father is a therapist. There's a very heavy scene when Richard finally opens up to his dad and weeps in his arms. I would have loved the rest of the movie to be just as heavy, but that wasn't the way it turned out. Anyone who's seen Richard as Bob Cratchit (what my family always calls him even though we know his actual name) in 1999's A Christmas Carol knows he's a good actor. But if you haven't seen the Christmas classic and it's too far away from December to wait, rent this light drama to see his acting chops. Yes, there are flaws, but not in his performance.
The other half of the story is an awkward '90s romantic comedy that feels out of place. Richard wants to get a nanny for the baby so he can go back to work, and instead of employing his mother or mother-in-law, he finds a waitress in a diner and decides she's the best mother substitute. It's so ludicrous; the first impression of Samantha Mathis is her temper flaring when a customer pinches her bottom. Her boss fires her for being rude and she leaves in a huff. What if she's a volatile person? What if her boss tracks her down (which he does later) and is a bad influence? What if she's not maternal or qualified in the least but happened to coo and compliment the baby because she wanted a big tip? It turns out, she doesn't even know how to change a diaper. She knows nothing - which is really incongruous with the story. Richard is supposed to be the floundering parent; why should his nanny also be clueless?
But it's worth it to see the dramatic parts of the story. Ironically, and realistically, Richard's parents are very cold towards him even though his father is a therapist. There's a very heavy scene when Richard finally opens up to his dad and weeps in his arms. I would have loved the rest of the movie to be just as heavy, but that wasn't the way it turned out. Anyone who's seen Richard as Bob Cratchit (what my family always calls him even though we know his actual name) in 1999's A Christmas Carol knows he's a good actor. But if you haven't seen the Christmas classic and it's too far away from December to wait, rent this light drama to see his acting chops. Yes, there are flaws, but not in his performance.