(out of 5)
A messy comedy about a fast-food restaurant employee (Drew Barrymore) who is pregnant with a married man’s child, and becomes the target of his stepsons after they murder him and she accidentally overhears it. Unfortunately, one of the stepsons (Luke Wilson, who was engaged to Barrymore at the time) falls in love with her while getting the job done and all sorts of entanglements ensue. Like any movie she’s in, Barrymore gives a warmhearted and memorable performance, but the plot wanders around so much in search of a spine and the direction is just so vacant that she can only look bad in the end. Catherine O’Hara is wonderful in a supporting role as the twisted mother of the two killers.
Baltimore Pictures, Home Fries Productions Inc., Kasdan Pictures, Warner Bros.
USA, 1998
Directed by Dean Parisot
Screenplay by Vince Gilligan
Cinematography by Jerzy Zielinski
Produced by Mark Johnson, Lawrence Kasdan, Barry Levinson, Charles Newirth
Music by Rachel Portman
Production Design by Barry Robison
Costume Design by Jill M. Ohanneson
Film Editing by Nicholas C. Smith
Toronto International Film Festival 1998