Romancefest 2016: The Proposal

It wouldn't be the romantic comedy edition of ROMANCEFEST without one appearance by Sandra Bullock, so now I bring you THE PROPOSAL, the 2009 flick directed by Anne Fletcher.

Bullock stars as a high powered editor at a big book publishing company who is feared by all who works under her. When she finds out she's due to be deported to her native Canada for being lax on her residency paperwork -- wait. This doesn't ring true. Forgive me for using an out-of-date term, but I find it hard to believe Bullock's totes Type A character would let her work visa go. Wait, again -- which was the out-of-date term? Totes or Type A?

Anyway, she finds out she's getting kicked out of the country and therefore potentially losing her one and only love, her career, and in a moment of desperation enlists her erstwhile executive assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to act as her fiance. It's kind of a fun dynamic -- ruthless female boss, hapless male assistant. The plan: they'll get married just long enough for her to get to stay stateside and then call it off. Reynolds can use it to further his career. It's a win-win! Nothing could POSSIBLY go wrong.

Except the immigration dude (Denis O'Hare) doesn't buy it so in an effort to make it more real, Bullock heads with Reynolds' to his home town to meet his family. This is where my ears perked up: his home town is Sitka, Alaska! I just visited there on vacation last year, and it was my favorite stop on my Alaskan tour, so I got pumped for an in-movie trip to Sitka. But, knowing movies the way I do, I made sure to check the filming locations on IMDB while Reynolds and Bullock were on the plane. Turns out the whole thing was shot in Massachusetts, so that's a bummer. I guess AK might have been too costly to shoot in for whatever reason. Still, it made the movie more interesting to be set in AK than, I dunno, like, the midwest or something.

When they get there it turns out Craig T. Nelson is Dad, Mary Steenburgen is Mom and Betty White is Grandma, which goes a long way towards helping the movie succeed, even when White is in native garb dancing around a fire (yikes).

So, I won't be giving anything away to reveal that even though Bullock and Reynolds don't really care for each other, their fake engagement starts to turn into real love. Bullock's uptight-ness starts to loosen up, and Reynolds, playing the more down to Earth one for once, comes to grips with his family issues.

Bullock does a good job with a thankless role, and Reynolds projects his natural likableness even though he plays kind of a boring dude, and like I said before, the location is cool and the supporting cast is great. You can enjoy all that stuff even though the love story itself isn't much to remember.