It would be very easy to dismiss this as "just another chick-flick".And you'd be right....it is.
But there are a couple of redeeming qualities that put it in the rare "chick flicks that I didn't mind watching" category.
I totally loved the story of Iris (decently portrayed by Kate Winslet) and Arthur (played by one of the all time greats, Eli Wallach. Where's he been?). I can honestly say, if this was the whole movie, it'd been fine with me. I mean, come on, an out of place English girl befriending one of Hollywood's forgotten great screen writers? Nice. The fast paced Hollywood world has forgotten him, nobody in the modern world has time for an old fool like this, and it takes a lovely little British girl, trying to escape her failures in love to finally crack this guy....see what I mean? That's a movie. I like Jack Black as much as anyone, but that whole story could've ended up on the cutting room floor in my books. Much to the detriment of the box office receipts, but that's why I'm a computer nerd writing a blog and not some big, high powered movie exec I guess.
And the whole other story involving Cameron Diaz and Jude Law. Same thing. Could've lived with out it. About the only positive that I got out of it was that I thought Jude Law was going to be a stereotypical English male bimbo, hopping from the pub to the bed with reckless abandon..kind of what I think he's like in real life. But they threw a curve at me (kind of a weak one admittedly, but it did break over the plate) by having him be a sympathetic widow with two cute little girls. This plot element alone literally drenches the film with "chick flick"-ness, but I did at least appreciate the attempt.
So a 15, 17 and 43 year old girl loved this movie...me on the other hand...it was okay.