Movie Review: Failure to Launch

Failure to Launch (2006) 

Directed by Tom Dey 

Written by Matt Ember

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Terry Bradshaw, Kathy Bates, Zoey Deschanel

Release Date February 10th, 2006 

Published February 10th, 2006

To buy into the premise of the new romantic comedy Failure To Launch you have to be willing to believe that there are so many men over the age of 30 still living with their parents that a woman could start a profitable business helping parents get rid of them. I just did not buy it and, thus, I felt that Failure To Launch was a failure in making sense.

Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Paula, an expert in removing deadbeats from mom and dad's house. She is hired by the parents of Tripp (Matthew McConaughey) who, despite having a good job selling boats for a living, driving a Porsche, and having his pick of beautiful women, still lives with his mom and dad, played by Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw.

Paula’s method for dealing with these momma's boy losers is to pretend to be the guy's girlfriend, build their self esteem in a simulated relationship and urge the men to get out on their own if they want to keep her. Once they are out of mom and dad's place, she dumps them. If you think that sounds ludicrous and, potentially, a little cruel this movie may not be for you.

Essentially, the premise of Failure To Launch is too stupid to support the movie. Things are not helped by the film's many diversions to goofy supporting characters like Paula’s roommate, Kit, played by Zooey Deschanel. Kit drinks constantly and, for some reason, is plagued by a bird that she chooses to hunt with the help of one of Tripp’s friends, played by Justin Bartha. The film gives ample screentime to this bizarre subplot, which has nothing to do with the main romance.

Then there are the animal attacks. For some strange, inexplicable reason Failure to Launch director Tom Dey thinks it is hysterically funny to have a character repeatedly attacked by various animals. A small chipmunk, a bottlenose dolphin and a small vegetarian lizard each randomly attack Tripp in what his buddy Demo (Bradley Cooper) says is nature punishing Tripp for his unnatural lifestyle. If you find these scenes funny you are on a very different wavelength than me.

I get that romantic comedies are often absurd from conception. Pretty Woman posited the lovely Julia Roberts as a grungy L.A prostitute. While You Were Sleeping pushed Sandra Bullock as the fake wife of a coma patient and one of my recent favorites, 50 First Dates, had Drew Barrymore as a woman with a severe short-term memory loss.  That was not the absurd part--finding Adam Sandler memorable enough to fall for, that was absurd.

So I get that logic, reason. and even coherence are not the strengths of this genre. Abandoning these things for a moment to evaluate Failure To Launch on its own terms I will admit that both McConaughey and Parker strike a likable chord. They spark well together in romantic scenes and give off the air of a loving couple even as the film spins out of control.

However the film is too out of control for my taste. Again I return to Deschanel's Kit whose fight with an obnoxious mockingbird interrupts the film's romantic plot once too often. A bizarre example is a scene set in a sporting-goods store where Kit attempts to buy a shotgun and is mistaken by the store clerk (the Daily Show's Rob Corddry in an unnecessary cameo) as someone contemplating suicide. The scene goes on for three or four minutes with this misunderstanding. Why this scene exists only director Tom Dey knows for sure.

Then there is the ending which undoes much of the good work that McConaughey and Parker do by making both look nearly as foolish as the rest of the film. The film plays on one of my movie pet peeves--the argument that would be solved if the characters simply spoke to one another. Tripp and Paula's romantic trouble could be solved with one easy conversation. Instead, the film pushes them together in an elaborately comic fashion, where neither is willing to say the few words that could solve the problem.

And only in a film this absurd could this important conversation be broadcast over the internet so all of the supporting players and more than a few extras can watch and cheer along their friends. One gets the sense that moments like these would work better as parody of romantic comedies and not as a sincere romance. The comedy of Failure To Launch seems designed like another take on what The 40 Year Virgin accomplished last year. A sweet-natured examination of arrested development with broad comic intentions specifically designed for the talents of comic actors accustomed to such material.

The actors involved in Failure To Launch, aside from the oddly well-suited Terry Bradshaw, are too straight laced and earnest for this expansively comic material. Both Parker and McConaughey have cultivated screen personas that make money playing real romance, not broadly comic slapstick with a hint of romance, ala Adam Sandler or Steve Carell.

With a pair of terrific lead actors there was certainly potential for Failure To Launch. But, doomed by an absurd premise better suited to the broad comic talents , Failure To Launch is an out-of-control mess of a film, distracted by its own precious idea of what is funny.