Prime Time: Along Came Polly (2004)

In the rather small list of actresses who have more than once played characters evaluated by someone nerdy enough to use statistics and/or a list of good and bad qualities, Jennifer Aniston ends up at the very top. After being put through that particular humiliation once in Friends, she is here made to go through an all too similar experience here. All because she ends up dating someone who goes through life trying to minimise risk.

Ben Stiller is Reuben Feffer, a man who lives his life in much the same way he does his job, by analyzing risks. This leads to him being blindsided while his new wife (Debra Messing) cheats on him during their honeymoon. Heartbroken and out of sorts, he then meets up with Polly (Aniston), and the two soon attempt a few dates, none of which are as safe as Reuben would like them to be.

It's worth bearing in mind that Along Came Polly is about as safe a rom-com for everyone involved as it is possible to get. One or two seconds of bawdiness aside, it plays out exactly how you think it will, and every cast member is allowed to stay well within their comfort zone. Aniston is a beautiful woman who isn't always as organised and sensible about things as she could be (ring any bells?), Stiller is a fairly repressed man who starts to enjoy the process of loosening up slightly (yep, he's done that before), and Alec Baldwin is onscreen just long enough to remind you why a small role for Alec Baldwin is almost always a good thing. Even Philip Seymour Hoffman is very much at ease, having a lot of fun in one of his all-too-rare comedic turns (standard comedy, there are a lot of wonderful performances from Hoffman that use him well in darkly comedic ways).

Written and directed by John Hamburg, who had previously worked on the scripts for both Meet The Parents and Zoolander for Stiller (and would also work on the sequels to those movies), there's nothing here that shows any attempt to even push against the rom-com boundary lines. The infrequent moments of toilet humour and slapstick have been done better in other movies, the leads don't have any decent chemistry together (as much as I like him, Stiller is a difficult male lead for females to create chemistry with), and none of the set-pieces are that funny. It's also hard to care about the characters, nothing is really earned and it's just a case of waiting for the dominoes to knock each other over on the way to the ending.

It's passable entertainment if you don't mind Stiller and Aniston in the main roles, but the most pleasure comes from those providing support, be it a slick-as-ever Baldwin turn, a wonderfully selfish Hoffman, a daredevil tycoon played by Bryan Brown, and even a scuba-diving lothario played by Hank Azaria. Never one that will top any lists of firm favourites, Along Came Polly is the kind of film you end up watching in the afternoon while staying in bed during a sick day. Hardly a glowing recommendation, I know, but different movies can fulfil different needs when the time is right.

5/10

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