In the amiably glossy if naggingly old-fashioned Hollywood romantic comedy Life or Something Like It, Angelina Jolie's Lanie Kerrigan, a Seattle newscaster, declares that her life is perfect. She loves her job, has a fianc?? (Christian Kane) who is a famous baseball player--and now she has a chance at a network slot that will make her a nationwide celebrity. That is, if she lives long enough to land it.
A cocky, independent cameraman (Edward Burns) has maneuvered her into interviewing Prophet Jack (Tony Shalhoub, bearded and shaggy), a street character who predicts (a) how tonight's football game will turn out, (b) that there will be hailstones tomorrow and (c) that she will be dead within the week. Shaken but dismissive, Lanie is a little nervous when Jack proves right as to the winner of the big game, then gets plenty scared when hailstones hit Seattle the next day. Burns' Pete, who doesn't hesitate to tell Lanie that she is the most delusional, self-involved, self-absorbed woman he has ever met, suggests that she might avoid Jack's dire prediction if she changes the kind of person she is.
Writers John Scott Shepherd and Dana Stevens and director Stephen Herek are clever in the way they play out Lanie's fate, which, not surprisingly, finds her discovering that her baseball star lover seems pretty simple in contrast to the wise and witty (and sexy and handsome) Pete. Lanie has taken her blond glamour look from Marilyn Monroe but lacquered it over and poured her gym-toned body into tight, high-style Dolce & Gabbana power suits.
Pete manages to reach--or so it seems--the real woman beneath the sleek veneer, so Lanie just might stave off imminent mortality. Ultimately, the film turns on the old love versus career conflict, and as a result it seems a bit sexist. It's hard not to believe that if it were Pete who had a shot at the big time that the filmmakers might not insist so strongly that a man would have to make Lanie's choice.
Life or Something Like It is an adroit crowd-pleaser, and Jolie and Burns exude charisma and the right chemistry, with Stockard Channing in a terrific take on a veteran media star who is Lanie's idol. But the film has a distinct retro undertow, and its point of view toward women is, if anything, a step back from those Rosalind Russell career girl movies of the '40s.
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times
