Writer Charlie Peters presumably thought that sounded great on paper but even though he also directs the film, he still can’t make the story work. Danny’s transformational influence on her family, in particular Anna’s blind sister Nina (Jennifer Tilly), comes across as manipulative rather than romantic. Nina is really the only interesting character in the film and Jennifer Tilly’s performance makes you feel as if Nina should be the lead. Unfortunately we’re stuck with Danny.
Jude Law can play unlikeable yet charming characters- Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr Ripley or Bosie in Wilde- but there’s no charm at all here, likeable or otherwise. He’s as anodyne as Gretchen Mol’s performance, although her character is so barely written that you forget she’s in the film, let alone the lead.
There’s no chemistry between Law and Mol that would gloss over the iffy message of the film- that a girl can be won around as long as you are persistent enough and charm the rest of her family. Lines such as ‘Danny’s love for you is so great that it has spilled over to the rest of the family’ are so saccharine that you have to wonder how the actors can actually deliver these lines, particularly when we see no evidence of said love.
The whole look of the film is so cheap and dated that it brings to mind the sort of romantic dramas that the Daily Mail used to give away with the newspaper. Should you enjoy those, perhaps you will enjoy this but for anyone else, this is a waste of a hundred minutes.