{"id":18318,"date":"2022-03-18T10:09:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-18T14:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwaslikemagic.com\/?p=18318"},"modified":"2026-05-01T11:03:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T15:03:44","slug":"alex-and-emma-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/alex-and-emma-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Alex & Emma’ (2003) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Heavily indebted to a pair of loan sharks, author Alex Sheldon (Luke Wilson<\/strong>) 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\u2019t even begun the book, one of the loan sharks destroys his laptop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without any other options, he hires a stenographer named Emma (Kate Hudson<\/a><\/strong>) 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s not a whole lot to\u00a0Alex and Emma<\/em>. 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<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polina is financially ruined and may marry the wealthy John Shaw to resolve her financial troubles, despite having begun a passionate affair with Adam. Polina\u2019s au pair, Anna, also catches Adam\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a cute concept, watching Alex and Emma\u2019s journey parallel to Alex and Anna\u2019s, 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\u2019t 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 \u201cless beautiful\u201d and more believable as a stenographer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson is fine, but Alex doesn\u2019t have a lot of depth, so there\u2019s honestly not much for Wilson to do with the role. He is pleasant enough, but that\u2019s about all he has going for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not to say Alex & Emma<\/em> was terrible; it just wasn\u2019t good, if that makes sense. Alex & Emma<\/em> has a fun premise, but it wasn\u2019t executed well. I like Rob Reiner, and he directed what is probably regarded as the greatest romantic comedy of all time \u2013 When Harry Met Sally<\/em> \u2013 but I haven\u2019t been terribly impressed with many of his subsequent efforts. Maybe When Harry Met Sally<\/a><\/em> is just one of those lightning-in-a-bottle moments, and without a Nora Ephron-like script, it\u2019s impossible to meet the same standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking away the unfair comparisons to\u00a0WHMS<\/em>,\u00a0Alex & Emma<\/em>\u00a0is just an average rom-com with two romantic leads who lack the chemistry to make a mediocre script work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watched:<\/strong> 03\/11\/2022
Notable Song<\/strong>: Those Sweet Words by Norah Jones<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rating:<\/strong><\/div>
<\/path><\/svg><\/path><\/svg><\/path><\/svg><\/path><\/svg><\/path><\/svg><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex & Emma: A writer must turn out a novel in thirty days or face the wrath of loan sharks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[440,1],"tags":[442,2188,1846,1999,836,3658,1019,2189],"class_list":["post-18318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews-a","category-reviews","tag-442","tag-alex-and-emma","tag-david-paymer","tag-kate-hudson","tag-luke-wilson","tag-2-stars","tag-rob-reiner","tag-sophie-marceau"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18318"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82849,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18318\/revisions\/82849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}