Jennifer Aniston has made many movies since her days on Friends, and except for Office Space, which is a cult hit, she doesn’t have any blockbuster movies. When I started this blog to talk about movies, I have always wanted to talk and compare her two films, Picture Perfect and Just Go With It. I’m not sure a lot of people realize the similarities between the two characters she plays.
run time: 105 mins
rated: PG
considered: Comedy, Drama, Romance
starring: Jennifer Aniston, Jay Mohr, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Dunn, Illeana Douglas
movie summary: Kate Mosley (Jennifer Aniston) is a smart advertising manager who has never been promoted to an executive position because she is single. For years she has busted her ass to land and keep marketing accounts for the company Mercer Advertising, which hasn’t allowed her to have much of social life, let alone with a date, anyone.
One night at a friend’s wedding, Kate meets a handsome guy named Nick (Jay Mohr), the wedding photographer. They share a dance and get their picture taken together before she leaves without knowing who he was. Within a few days, her best friend Darcy (Illeana Douglas) sets up a meeting with the company owner Mr. Mercer (Kevin Dunn), who explains why she will never be promoted. He says that she has no commitments to the company, and since she’s single with no tie-downs, she could walk away to a rival company and take Mercer accounts with her.
In a last-ditch effort to save Kate’s job, Darcy shows Mr. Mercer the picture of Kate and Nick from the wedding and explains they are engaged.
The engagement story spreads around the office when Kate gets promoted to a senior executive position. Sam Mayfield (Kevin Bacon) is another executive who falls for Kate and begins sleeping with her while she searches for Nick, who lives in Boston. She can finally contact him and offers to hire him to be her fiance for a company function, where they will stage a break up so she can keep her job and continue to see Sam.
Meanwhile, up in Boston, Nick makes the national news for jumping out of a window to save a little girl from a fire, making everyone in the office excited to meet him. He arrives in New York City, where Kate has prepared a script for the fight and her resume for him to overlook to make their relationship look legit. They spend a few days together before Nick begins to fall in love with Kate. He doesn’t go through the planned break up at dinner in front of Mr. Mercer, so she decides to make a dinner scene that makes Nick out to be the bad guy. She accuses him of cheating on her, then dumps him. The bosses are on her side, so this becomes a win-win situation for her.
Later that night, at Sam’s place, she falls and gets a black eye, which leads everyone at work to think Nick beat her up. He shows up to her work to thank her for the big city trip, reminds her that she is a beautiful woman and should never settle for less. Kate returns home to find that the money she paid him is on the table, so the next day, she breaks down and explains everything to Mr. Mercer before quitting her job. He comes to her office and tells her to take a week off and go find Nick because he’s a great guy and she shouldn’t let him go.
My thoughts: It’s no secret I love romantic comedies, and this is one of my favourite movies from the 1990s. When I was sick and stayed home from work, I came across this movie on TV. Picture Perfect is a funny and charming story that features Aniston before becoming a big star. She is the cute innocent girl who plays two guys at the same time to get a step ahead in her career, only to realize that she’s not that kind of girl and tries to make it right. Today she plays roles that make her out to be really sexy more than a regular happy-go-lucky girl. Jay Mohr is funny as the nice guy hero who ends up saving two girls in the movie. His moral stance on the awkward situation he is thrust into makes the people around him realize that being the better person will gain anyone more respect than someone pretending to be someone they are not.
This film will not be for everyone, but if it is raining outside and you’re in the mood for a chick flick, this movie is on Netflix.
my star rating: 7 out of 10
Ten Stars or Less 