Movie: "Isn't It Romantic"

"Isn't It Romantic" is a movie that both satirizes (makes fun of?) and pays homage to the romantic comedy film genre.

Rebel Wilson, the zaftig  Australian actress who has starred in all of the Pitch Perfect movies, plays our heroine, Natalie.  She  plays an architect at a firm where, if she is noticed at all, she is looked down upon by the other employees, is the one always told to fetch the coffee at meetings, and she doesn't quite know how to stand up for herself. She also lives in a crummy apartment in a crummy New York City neighborhood.  She does know one guy at the office, Josh, who actually is crazy about her, but she is just too emotionally blind to see it.  One night, when coming home from work, she gets mugged in the subway, knocks herself unconscious when she runs into a steel beam, and when she wakes up, she finds herself in an alternate universe.

Her doctor is impossibly handsome, her NYC neighborhood becomes transformed with fresh flowers growing everywhere.    Her apartment is huge and gorgeous with an unlimited designer wardrobe.  The handsome and rich client who treated her with disdain before has fallen in love with her, but Josh, that guy at the office who liked her all along, well he has fallen in love with a gorgeous supermodel, and they might get married <gasp!> before Natalie realizes that <gasp!> Josh has been The One for her all along.  Oh, and people on the street spontaneously break into elaborate choreographed dance numbers.  Her life has turned into the kind of RomCom Movie that she as always disdained.

The movie takes on all of the cliches that are a part of seemingly every RomCom you've ever seen, and it's actually quite a bit of fun.  This movie will make no Ten Best Lists, will win no awards, and, like most RomComs, you'll probably pretty much forget about it within a few months after you've seen it, but that doesn't mean it isn't a fun movie and worth seeing.  It'll give you a few laughs and make you smile, and who can't use that in their life?

Two and a half Stars from The Grandstander.