Alex & Emma Synopsis: A writer must turn out a novel in thirty days or face the wrath of loan sharks.
Heavily indebted to a pair of loan sharks, author Alex Sheldon (Luke Wilson) has thirty days to finish his next manuscript in order to reach his check, pay off his debt, and save his life. After discovering that Alex hadn’t even begun the book, one of the loan sharks destroys his laptop.
Without any other options, he hires a stenographer named Emma (Kate Hudson) to help him finish. As he dictates his novel to Emma, Emma begins questioning his writing choices and characterizations, which Alex finds annoying and helpful. Fiction begins to bleed into reality as Alex and Emma grow closer.
There’s not a whole lot to Alex and Emma. As Alex dictates his novel to Emma, the movie shifts between reality and the story Alex creates. The main character is Adam, a tutor to the children of a beautiful French woman named Polina (Sophie Marceau).
Polina is financially ruined and may marry the wealthy John Shaw to solve her money troubles, despite beginning a passionate affair with Adam. Polina’s au pair, Anna, also catches Adam’s eye, and he must choose which life and woman to pursue. And yes, Alex is taking his own real-life experiences and turning them into fiction.
It’s a cute concept, watching Alex and Emma’s journey parallel Alex and Anna’s, but I have to admit it was also a bit distracting. As much as I adore Luke Wilson and, to an extent, Kate Hudson, I didn’t feel much chemistry between them. Hudson is much more fun as the ever-changing au pair than she is as uptight Emma. I assume they put her in a brown wig to make her “less beautiful” and more believable as a stenographer?
Wilson is fine, but Alex doesn’t have a lot of depth, so there’s honestly not much for Wilson to do with the role. He is pleasant enough, but that’s about all he has going for him.
That’s not to say Alex & Emma was terrible; it just wasn’t good, if that makes sense. Alex & Emma has a fun premise, but it wasn’t executed well. I like Rob Reiner, and he directed what is probably regarded as the greatest romantic comedy of all time – When Harry Met Sally – but I haven’t been terribly impressed with many of his subsequent efforts. Maybe When Harry Met Sally is just one of those lightning-in-a-bottle moments, and without a Nora Ephron-like script, it’s impossible to meet the same standard.
Taking away the unfair comparisons to WHMS, Alex & Emma is just an average rom-com with two romantic leads without the proper amount of chemistry to make a mediocre script work.
Watched: 03/11/2022
Notable Song: Those Sweet Words by Norah Jones
