I still don’t think there’s a perfect movie about the world of modern online dating yet. We’ve gotten some good TV shows about the subject (Master of None has the best one I know about) at least. Damon Wayans Jr. and Rachel Leigh Cook try to swoon us with online meet cutes in Love, Guaranteed. Unfortunately, the movie betrays its really great romcom premise.
Seriously, it’s a great romcom premise. Susan (Rachel Leigh Cook) is a pro bono lawyer, out there trying to help the little guy from all the horrors of the world. Needing some money to make ends meet, she takes the case of Nick (Damon Wayans Jr.), a lovelorn man who’s been on 1,000 dates on a dating site called Love, Guaranteed. Having not found love before 1,000 dates, Nick wants to sue the giant dating app corporation for not finding love. But wait, y’all will never believe this…turns out Susan is exactly the one Nick was waiting for.
Love, Guaranteed is more interested in swooning us than being something bigger. With it’s gimmick, the movie could have been a really clever satire about the world of online dating. Instead, we get a bunch of stuff we’ve seen before (grant it, it’s still amusing): people/profile mismatches, weird food requestors, cat obsessions, etc. Now that that’s out of the way, we get the greatest Seattle travelogue in movie history, designed to make us melt into the arms of a loved one. Of course Rachel Leigh Cook falls for Damon Wayans walking on an autumn multi-colored tree covered pier overlooking Seattle’s gorgeous skyline. Outdoors not your thing? That’s cool, we get completely adorable shots of the downtown dining scene, complete with candlelight and gorgeous shots of romantically lit street corners. The first half of Love, Guaranteed is designed to make you get a little hot and bothered under the collar as the movie tries to make you fall in love with it.
And then the trial begins. All the hard work the movie does to win your heart gets shook by a series of groan inducing eye roll plot developments. And not just any plot developments! Ones that could be solved with one line of dialogue. An example, as you can clearly see, the corporation is going to notice Susan and Nick are getting chummy, and going to use that against him in his case. All the movie has to do with 2 lines is go: “Why can’t we just wait till the trial is over to date?” “That could take years in litigation!” Boom! plot hole fixed. Does Love, Guaranteed do that? Nope, just glosses over it, meaning the courtroom “drama” is built on a throne of lies and romcom BS. I’ll give the creator’s credit for this: once logic is thrown out the window, they really just stop caring about it at all, making full blown mockery of the justice system in ways we’re supposed to be manipulated to care about. If you like the manipulation, then Love, Guaranteed will probably work for you. For me, it’s mistakes are too glaring to guarantee anything other than an eye roll.
Either way, thanks Netflix. No, not for a winning romcom that made me fall in love all over again. Thanks instead for the greatest travelogue of a city I haven’t seen. I don’t know how excited I was to visit Seattle, but it jumped tenfold after watching this film. Especially in the fall. On a pier. Overlooking the beautifuly skyline.