The Proposal (2009)

What’s so great about The Proposal is…actually, there really isn’t anything great about The Proposal. What I find great about The Proposal is that it isn’t terrible. What makes a romantic comedy bad is when it becomes clichéd and repulsive. What makes a romantic comedy mediocre is when the clichés still reside, but the film does have some decent jokes it throws in. What makes a romantic comedy good is when it puts the romance on the backburner, it still being prominent, but being second-in-command to some actually funny jokes. And The Proposal is the perfect example of the third one. In the film, a Canadian woman named Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock), who is the editor in chief of a book publishing company, finds out she is getting deported. So she has a problem. And her answer to that problem is found in Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds), her assistant. Margaret gets Andrew to pretend to be her fiancée so that she can legally stay in the country, and the plan is when she gets everything figured out, she divorces him. This sounds like the perfect plan, right? Actually, no. If there’s a plan where in real life something might go wrong, it will go wrong on screen. And what goes wrong is actually kind of funny. There were a few moments where I got a few really good laughs. And that is why I do really like this film. Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds are both great, and also there is Betty White in a role, and she is great as always. The other actors, while I don’t know their names and they don’t stand out enough for me to research them, are very good. Also, the writer and director of the film are both very good. The film was just a good film. It made me happy. And after seeing romantic comedies so awful as Leap Year, this movie was sweet redemption. Sweet, sweet redemption.
8/10