Like Noel Coward, with Hockey
Watching Everyone Says I Love You is like having a fond lover bop you on the nose with perfect, pink, thornless rose. It’s a gesture at once tender and teasing, a moment of sweetness rescued from saccharine sentiment by a touch of absurdity. And really, the whole movie’s like that.
As for the premise, various branches of a kindly, wealthy family meet and fall in love with a series of equally pleasant people against the backdrop of the golden cities of New York, Venice and Paris. But what really makes this airy bit of fluff sing? The fact that from time to time, one or another of these lovesick cast members will burst into actual song. What rescues their rather dodgy warblings is a startlingly genuine sense of absolute sincerity. And thus, everyone who sings becomes automatically adorable.
Their voices are sweet, if untrained, from Julia Roberts’ tuneless, horsey yet endearingly earnest rendition of “All My Life” to Woody Allen’s thin, wavering, nearly-whispered “I’m Through With Love”. The showstopper is “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)”, but my absolute favorite is Alan Alda’s version of “Looking At You”, which is rendered all the more charming by the addition of some ridiculous retouched photos meant to portray his life with Goldie Hawn.
There is no “bad guy” per se, although there is a fantastic criminal: Tim Roth hams it up as the strangely suave thug who lures Drew Barrymore from her nebbishy sweetheart’s side. Edward Norton does a fine turn as the nebbishy Woody Allen-esque sweetheart, and a slew of cuties round out the cast, including Lucas Haas and Natalie Portman. There are good intentions in the service of self-interest, sobering reminders of our mortality, first loves, old loves, amiable ex-partners and all manner of romantic possibility in between.
I saw Midnight in Paris recently, and it nearly matches the spirit of this film, with its surreal little jaunts into an idealized past, but ounce for ounce, this film is sweeter still, and kinder, too.
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