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Every Jack Has A Jill (DVD)

Year: 2009

Rating: MA

Director: Jennifer Devoldère

Cast: Justin Bartha, Billy Boyd, Melanie Laurent

Release Date: October 13, 2010

Distributor: Warner

The Film: 2.0

FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5

A superficial and predictable romantic comedy which tries to emulate eccentric French flicks but falls short.

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Ever since the elfin Amelie bewitched the critics, there's been a bit of a standard for French female characters to fill. Good bone structure? Check. Doe eyes? Check. Inexplicably "eccentric" habits? Check. Every Jack Has A Jill ticks off all the boxes. Chloe (Inglourious Basterds' Melanie Laurent) is a pretty, purposeless office worker with a non-existent romantic life. Jack (The Hangover's Justin Bartha) is a neurotic American on the other side of the world, similarly disengaged with his going-nowhere-fast life. One international airport stop later, the two lost souls unwittingly end up back where they started, minus their luggage. Jack is left, literally, with just the shirt on his back, while Chloe finds herself in possession of his mislaid suitcase. As Jack tries to find his luggage, Chloe desperately tries to find the man who packs a copy of One Hundred Years Of Solitude when visiting the city of love.

 

In the spirit of soul-searching, indulgent romantic mood pieces, you can see where this one is going - two wayward lives, miraculously reconciled by the sheer inadequacy of international airlines. With its underwritten characters, a worrying lack of warmth and, of course, the obligatory last minute dash to the airport, Every Jack Has A Jill hasn't got a patch on Amelie. The DVD doesn't contain any extra features.

 

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