PERFECT isn't. It's too long, too contrived, too 1980s, too self-consciously hip. It has too many predictable plot twists, and it tries too hard to cash in on the "body-beautiful" fad. Adam (John Travolta) is a reporter for Rolling Stone who has come to California to research a story on
a successful businessman accused of drug dealing. To keep busy in Lotusland, Adam opts to write a piece on the exercise fad, and after visiting "The Sports Connection" he decides to make Jessie (Jamie Lee Curtis) the center of his article. She's a former Olympic swimmer, now an aerobics
instructor. Attracted to Adam, Jessie nonetheless shies away from him because--hold your breath--she was hurt by a reporter years before and distrusts the press. She finally agrees to an interview, but the published article comes as a surprise.
PERFECT, based on Rolling Stone articles by Aaron Latham, is as smug and superficial as the people it portrays. Curtis is all right (although her formidable physical assets are out of place on the body of a putative swimmer); Travolta is adequate in an ineptly written role. However, there is so
little magnetism between the two that one suspects they might find common ground only when jockeying for preening space in front of a mirror. The movie is devoid of laughs, thanks to James Bridges' characteristically humorless direction. leave a comment
