Film Reviews

Monster-In-Law

• Rating:
• Director: Robert Luketic
• Starring: Jane Fonda
• Details: US / 102 mins (12s).

A singleton with a bohemian apartment and gay best friend, Charlie (Lopez) walks dogs, designs dresses, temps as a doctor's secretary and waitresses to the rich and famous. Not all at the same time, naturally, but you get the picture: Charlie's just one of the gals. Impossibly glam, and living in a bohemian apartment on a part-time wage, but still. Anyway, a brilliant and ludicrously rich doctor (Vartan) falls in love with Charlie while jogging past her on the beach and subsequently proposes to her while they sip tea with his mother - as brilliant doctors are wont to do. Unsurprisingly, his mother (Fonda) isn't impressed. Unfortunately, that's the only semi-realistic moment in the entire flick. Fonda is entirely wasted in this extended and excessively mannered catfight, but even though she appears to be snoring her way through most of her scenes, she still manages to act her younger counterpart off the set. Lopez's cutesy lickle gurly-girl routine veers between nauseating and offensive, and her sickly-sweet demeanour means that when she finally turns the tables on her tormentor, her character lacks the necessary venom to make it convincing. I spent the duration hoping Hanoi Jane would call in a nuclear strike from her new buddies in North Korea, but sadly, it wasn't to be.

Review by Declan Burke