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A Guy Thing

2003, Movie, PG-13, 101 mins

A Guy Thing: Review

GUY THING, A
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An amiable romantic comedy that delivers a couple of solid laughs and doesn't utterly humiliate its game cast in the process. Unadventurous, sweet-natured Paul (Jason Lee) is about to marry beautiful, perfectly pulled-together Karen (Selma Blair), and he's such a nice guy he doesn't even want a lap dance from the scantily clad "tiki girls" hired for his hula-themed bachelor party. But he still manages to wake up the following morning next to tiki tootsie Becky (Julia Stiles) — with Karen on the way, what's a groom-to-be to do? Paul hustles Becky into her grass skirt and bikini top (her panties remain ominously unaccounted for) and throws her out, albeit with an apology and the sheepish assurance that under normal circumstances he isn't this guy. And under normal circumstances that would be the end of it, except that Becky proves to be Karen's out-of-town cousin. With the addition of a psycho-cop ex-boyfriend named Ray (Lochlyn Munro), who hired a detective to follow Becky and now has some very compromising photos, Paul sees his life unraveling before his eyes. He's going to lose Karen, lose his job working for Karen's dad and wind up a white-trash nobody. So Paul starts lying, initiating an escalating cycle of untruth. And to make matters worse, he finds himself falling for the free-spirited Becky (who, contrary to appearances, did not actually sleep with Paul, let alone give him crabs). This familiar romantic comedy set-up comes to a thoroughly predictable conclusion, enlivened by the charming cast and refreshingly low gross-out factor. What's most remarkable about this generally conventional picture is its restraint, leaving aside one protracted sequence in which Paul feigns marathon diarrhea so he can hide in the bathroom until Becky leaves. Karen comes from a wealthy family, but isn't a shallow, stuck-up bitch; her parents (Diana Scarwid, James Brolin) may find Paul's boisterous mom and dad (Julie Hagerty, David Koechner) a bit crude, but make their in-laws-to-be welcome because that's what well brought-up people do. And for all the glasses of wine snatched out of elderly Aunt Budge's (Jackie Burroughs) hand, she never suffers the indignity of a drunken fall down the stairs or some stunningly vulgar admission at the rehearsal dinner: By 21st-century standards this amounts to rare refinement. The formulaic mechanical plot machinations benefit greatly from the presence of the vivacious Stiles, gravely beautiful Blair and personable Lee, who radiates fundamental decency without seeming like a sap. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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