Film Reviews

No Reservations

• Rating:
• Director: Scott Hicks.
• Starring: Catherine Zeta Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Abigal Breslin, Patricia Clarkson.
• Details: US / 103mins (PG).

Diet Coke. Vanilla. Glenroe. The Thrills. No Reservations can be added to a long list of dull, uninspiring, unoriginal but completely harmless and inoffensive products. A eunuch of a movie, No Reservations is a remake of the German 'Mostly Martha' but is mostly a remake of every romantic movie ever made. Uptight workaholic chef Kate's (Jones) life changes when she is forced to take care of niece Zoe (Breslin), whose mother was killed in a car crash. After taking a few days off to mourn, Kate returns to work, to find that fun-loving Nick (Eckhart) has been hired in her absence. Sparks fly, but Nick worms his way into first Zoe's and then Kate's heart. The big problem with No Reservations is that it's so jadedly formulaic you've already seen it a thousand times before. There are no funny insights, no chemistry between the leads, no romance, no drama and no story (it must break the record for the number of montages in a romantic drama). Things happen out of the blue for no apparent reason other than screenplay principles demand that something happens on page 17, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90. Saying all that, if you've had a really bad day and you're in the mood for something nicey-nicey that doesn't require any brains or emotional depth, No Reservations isn't the worst way to spend the evening.

Review by Gavin Burke