Failure to Launch (2006)

The Children's Hour (1961)

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FAILURE TO LAUNCH

Reviewed by Heather Picker

In which Matthew McConaughey finds himself in an arranged relationship that doesn't involve Penelope Cruz.

What, that's not good enough for you? You really expect me to write about Failure to Launch? Don't you remember the commercials? The commercials looked pretty bad, right? The movie is even worse. Why would you subject yourself to that – or me to reliving it?

Fine. Have it your way. I'll tell you about Failure to Launch. It fucking sucks. It's a broken movie. Nothing in it works. As you might remember from the ads, Sarah Jessica Parker plays Paula, a woman hired by frustrated parents to get their adult sons to move out of the familial nest. Matthew McConaughey plays Tripp, a yacht salesman who says "it's gonna take a stick of dynamite to get me out of my parents' home." He likes not having to cook or clean for himself and when he wants to break up with his latest girlfriend, all he has to do is bring her home for a night of PG-13 sex in the bed his mother so lovingly made for him. Next morning she sees that he lives with his parents and just like that she heads for the hills.

Tripp is obviously a pain in the ass, so his parents, played by Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw, schedule a consultation with Paula. She lays it all out for them. She simulates a romantic experience and as the babied bachelor bonds with her, he lets go of his parents. She withholds sex, using it as a motivator. If the parents can hold up their end of the bargain and apply more pressure on their son to grow up, Paula can deliver an independent, self-sufficient adult in a matter of weeks. And then, once he has a place of his own, she dumps him. It should go without saying these two pills are made for each other.

It's not the greatest set-up, but it could be passable with the right filmmakers. Instead it dies in the hands of Failure to Launch scribes Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, TV writers who worked on shows like "Jumanji" and "The Hughleys," and director Tom Dey (Shanghai Noon and Showtime), who are more interested in showcasing a good-natured Bradshaw's naked behind and watching Tripp get attacked by lizards and chipmunks on hiking trips than having any fun with the plot.

Not even the supporting characters liven up the proceedings. Zooey Deschanel plays Kit, Paula's curiously younger roommate. She's sarcastic and known to yell "Shut up, you whore" at mockingbirds. Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha play Tripp's best friends Demo and Ace. They share his zest for the great outdoors and mooching off the 'rents. Demo admits he feels shunned by society for being a man in his mid 30s who still lives at home, but he isn't looking to move out any time soon.

While Tripp and his pals go about their normal business of dirt biking and meeting for lunch to reassure each other there's nothing wrong with their living arrangements, Paula sets to work wooing Tripp. This involves playing paintball and enlisting the help of a friend at the veterinarian's office to make it look like her beloved dog has died -- all part of her bonding with her latest charge. Forget about the dog business: yes, I said paintball. Paintball might have been acceptable in a mainstream comedy with, like, Rick Moranis in the early '90s, but this is just pathetic. And if that's not dopey enough, we've got jokes about effeminate airline stewards and neutered dogs. My septuagenarian grandma, the mild-mannered one who covers her mouth and says "oh my" if someone says "darn" on TV, would watch this and yell, "Oh, for fuck's sake!" Astle and Ember even write a scene of Paula with the Star Wars obsessed son of a client (played by comedian Patton Oswalt). What can they say -- what can anyone say -- about Star Wars geeks that hasn't been covered to superior effect by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog? As it turns out, nothing.

There are perfunctory plot developments. The detached Kit finds romance with an unlikely partner, a jealous Demo threatens to sabotage Tripp's new relationship, and late in the movie a half-assed effort is made to explain Tripp's arrested development. McConaughey, who has made a career of playing lovable, laidback lugs, barely registers here, and Parker looks like she's still reeling from having been drained of her considerable comic talents as a shrieking harridan in The Family Stone. Dey, it would appear, never noticed. Failure to Launch is a dull, lifeless movie with a shockingly bland soundtrack and a second-rate sitcom look. The chipmunk was right to be angry.

"Failure to Launch" is available on DVD. Directed by Tom Dey. Screenplay by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember. Starring Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker, with Zooey Deschanel, Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper, Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw. 2006, 97 minutes, Rated PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity and language.

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