Just Go with It

Directed by Dennis Dugan

2011

When he is about to marry, Daniel “Danny” Maccabee (Adam Sandler) learns that his fiancé is cheating on him and leaves her at the altar. While drowning his sorrows at a bar he discovers an angle to get women without emotional attachment by pretending to be married. Now he has met someone he actually likes but his scheme comes back to bite him. Danny enlists his office manager Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) to help him out and things immediately spiral out of control as one lie requires another and another.

This is a surprisingly funny and heartwarming movie. It is a silly premise that should not work but does. Then again Sandler has made a career of starring in successful films with ridiculous plots and getting them to work. This is a romantic comedy that is very heavy on the comedy without skimping on the romantic part. Plenty of laughs and plenty of feels.

Sandler and Aniston have real chemistry together. They play well off one another. “Friends” is most definitely not my favorite show. I think it is a mediocre (on a good episode) series so watching Aniston in something good was a revelation. The slow realization each character has that “the one” was right in front of each of them feels genuine and not contrived.

While a little bit more serious than some of his other comedy efforts, it still contains all the usual Adam Sandler style humor. Absurd supporting characters contributing to even more absurd situations and Sandler’s character stuck in the middle losing his mind to one extent or another.

There is the sprinkling of the usual Adam Sandler costars and as always they kill it too. Allen Covert plays a character referred to derisively by Danny as “Soul Patch.” Nick Swardson is Danny’s cousin Eddie who pretends to be Danny’s fake ex-wife’s new lover “Dolph Lundgren” (not the actor) in order to be a part of a trip that Danny plans with Katherine/Devlin and their “kids”-just her kids in reality-and his girlfriend Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) that is meant to bring closure to the “marriage.” Swardson is a source of the majority of the slapstick during the Hawaii leg of the film. His ludicrous German accent alone makes it  worth seeing this movie.

I was a little surprised to find Nicole Kidman here. It just does not seem like her type of thing to do. She is a bit more of a highbrow actress and the comedy generally produced by Sandler does not fit that bill. She is so good as Devlin Adams who is the grating college sorority friend of Katherine. She was like no other character I have ever seen her play before. This is something she should do more often.

The movie benefits from not being a travel log of Hawaii as can happen sometimes. They actually focus on story and on jokes. It is an absurd premise pushed to ever increasing levels of absurdity. And it is also a very sweet romantic comedy. As the pretend marriage continues, both characters realize as they draw from the truth in order to perpetuate the lie, they have feelings for each other.

Just Go with It is a great movie. It surpassed my expectations both in humor and in content. It is a great date movie that you will watch even if you do not go on a date to see it.