Larry (Tom Hanks) is an overly-conscious employee at U Mart (a generic Target.) He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t just tell you which aisle you’ll find the lightbulbs, but instead shows you. He’s been employee of the month nine, count ’em, nine times. So it doesn’t quite make sense when he’s fired for never getting a college degree (can you do that?) Apparently he was a culinary chef in the army. Okay, so now he’s at the local Community college (can you get a degree in one semester?) and his teacher is none other than America’s other safe, sweetheart, Julia Roberts. The irony is that for such a likable guy who was such an outgoing employee, why would he need a course called “Speech 217?”
His neighbor (Cedric the Entertainer) has turned his yard into an ongoing yard sale (again some irony. Out with the old. Clear out your life) but doesn’t add much to the film except for the constant haggling of what something might cost.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding’s screenwriter Nia Vardalos teams up to pen this missing-a-few-links script with Tom Hanks, who also directs (his first film since That Thing You Do!) We watch a middle-aged man reinventing himself – and that’s all fine, but we never know why he’s going through a messy divorce, never had kids, or what his backstory is. He’s just coming to terms with everything ending. One would suppose it’s to put the focus on the blooming frienship between Roberts and Hanks. She’s married to a hatable loser who porn surfs, Breaking Bad’s Brian Cranston, so it’s easy to root for the two of them. But there’s no chemistry. And that’s not the half of it. The plot puts a pressure on the Robert’s character to be all things “Julia Roberts” with the big laugh, but it just doesn’t work. When Roberts smiles, she lights up the screen, but when she doesn’t her gaunt features seem to make her habitually angry. The upside down frown, the long jowl expressions, the over-sized mouth, just doesn’t work as it did twenty years ago. Two and a half tiaras