Are You Ready For Love

Date watched 19th March 2011
Genre- Romantic, Comedy
Year- 2007
Running Time- 1hr 28mins
Directed By- Helen Grace
Written By-Roberto Trippini, Trudy Sargent and Helen Grace
Actors- Michael Brandon, Ed Byrne, Andy Nyman, Lucy Punch, Leigh Zimmerman, Lucy Liemann, Craig Kelly et al.

Acting-1/5
Keeping my attention- 1/4
Visuals/Direction- 2/5
Story/Plot- 1/6
Total 5 /20

Plot
A pair of Californian love gurus come to London to launch their book on how to find love in three days. As a publicity stunt for the book, they try to find soul mates for three lonely Londoners in three days, but things don't go according to plan. Will the hapless in love Londoners find true love in three days?

My Personal Views
I bought this movie off Amazon, it was one of those, “people who also viewed/bought such and such also viewed/bought ‘Are You Ready For Love’”. I thought why the hell not? I read the synopsis, saw who was in it and bought it. I really wish I hadn’t and saved the £3.72 I spent.

As you will all be aware by now I am a sucker for romantic comedies but this one falls way short of the mark.

Firstly, I know this was a very low budget movie but it just lacks a personality and looks like a cheap TV movie.

Lucy Punch and everyone else seemed to be going at it half heartedly; Ed Byrne is a great comedian, but actor, not so much. But I’m not laying the blame for this floppy acting at the door of the actors themselves, I just don’t think they ever have an opportunity to actually act during this film, whether it’s something with the script, direction or what, I just can’t put my finger on it. In my head I was trying to re-cast it but then I thought maybe that wouldn’t even help, is it just a crap story? I don’t know.

Lucy Punch’s character also goes through phases of being a phyco-stalker type which doesn’t do anything to make her endearing. Some of the other characters just seem to be lacking in personality.

Also there is too much swearing in some places, which doesn’t add anything. I’m not a prude, in fact I swear as much as the next person, but this movie just doesn’t need it in there.

Denise Van Outen does nothing to add to the mix, she just ends up annoying the hell out of me.

In all, for me, only a few steps away from being atrocious. It plods along (almost with a limp). I think I laughed twice and only as a knee jerk reaction rather than a deep belly laugh because it was actually funny.

This movie does nothing to encourage British film making.

On a positive note, because everything must have something good about it, some of the plot twists were ok and the ending was kind of sweet but it was the getting there that didn’t do it for me.

Outcome
Well I thought about throwing it in the bin to save anyone else having to sit through this appalling film but instead it’s sitting on top of the eBay pile just in case someone actually wants it.