I'm a huge Ricky Gervais fan, so I really had high hopes for this movie. It's a clever premise, after all, and has a first-rate cast. The religion bit didn't bother me the way it bothered some people; I could easily see that as being precisely how religion came about.
What did bother me was the fact that a guy we're supposed to care about has set his sights on an extremely shallow woman. For awhile there I was hoping that he would sit down with the friend who set him up with this woman in the first place and, as happens in so many trite romances, eventually realize that it was this other woman he really loved.
But, no; we don't even get a trite romance out of this. What we get is a man who eventually wins the woman who has absolutely nothing going for her except that she's pretty. And, when we stop to wonder precisely why this man might love a woman who has absolutely nothing going for her except that she's pretty, we realize that he loves her because, and only because, of her looks.
Making this a story about a very shallow man who falls in love with a very shallow woman, believes, in sort of incel-creepiness, that he deserves her simply because he wants her, and eventually wins her.
How disappointing.
What did bother me was the fact that a guy we're supposed to care about has set his sights on an extremely shallow woman. For awhile there I was hoping that he would sit down with the friend who set him up with this woman in the first place and, as happens in so many trite romances, eventually realize that it was this other woman he really loved.
But, no; we don't even get a trite romance out of this. What we get is a man who eventually wins the woman who has absolutely nothing going for her except that she's pretty. And, when we stop to wonder precisely why this man might love a woman who has absolutely nothing going for her except that she's pretty, we realize that he loves her because, and only because, of her looks.
Making this a story about a very shallow man who falls in love with a very shallow woman, believes, in sort of incel-creepiness, that he deserves her simply because he wants her, and eventually wins her.
How disappointing.