Must Love Dogs

Must Love Dogs is a romantic comedy for adults, not because it's about adult themes but because it's about forty-somethings and not about a college kid played by Freddie Prinze Jr. (where is he now btw?). Anyway, the movie is lame, not funny, it doesn't offer anything new to the genre, and just like its title, it sucks. It's worth nothing (or bashing) that the title does make sense because of dogs is how the lead characters meet, but after that the main dog plays an almost nothing role and there's not even a subplot involving him.

Diane Lane plays Sarah, a recent divorcee who's family is trying to get her into the dating game again. I don't know how long has she been divorced because at first she says the last month has been tough but later in the movie she says her ex-husband got remarried 2 months ago so it's not very clear. Anyway, we see her go on dates for way too long while at the same time we get to know Jake (played by John Cusack), also a recent divorcee who makes wooden boats nobody buys but other than that he doesn't seem to have a job. She's a pre-school teacher.
They finally meet, and the horrible script tries to play smart by getting Sarah and Jake to not connect at first and even putting another guy after Sarah (Bob, played by Dermot Mulroney) even though when we first hear about him they tell us he's a bad guy. And besides, we already know she's going to end up with Jake because I don't see no Dermot in the poster.
Lame situation after lame situation happens (including the now classic though still embarrassing sing-a-long) and of course they end up together at last.

Diane Lane showed her range (and received a well deserved Oscar nom) in Unfaithful, but before that and since then there's nothing note-worthy in her career. She was so good in that movie that I don't understand why she takes these roles. I mean, she's ok, but there's nothing she could do to save this movie thanks to the bad writing by Gary David Goldberg who also directed.
The only way to save this movie would've been if John Cusack's character had more screen time. It really sucks cause we only see bits of his character's life while we get long scenes of Sarah and all her big family which includes Christopher Plummer as dad Bill who's now, just like his daughter, playing the field after her wife died years ago. It's an interesting character actually that could have his own movie and be like an old Alfie.

But anyway, Cusack is really wasted here, specially since his character's dialogue is so good, which I heard Cusack himself rewrote after the director asked him to. And he's not even a lead character, only Diane Lane's is if it were according to their screen time. They gave him top billing in the poster just to get his fans to see the movie, and it worked I guess, because he was the only reason I had to watch Must Love Dogs, and after seeing it, he still is.