Head Over Heels (2001)

According to the credits, 4 men were responsible for this story and one of them teamed with another guy to write the script. Add in the director and at least 6 dudes had a hand in crafting this very female-centric film. How do you think that worked out? There are plenty of examples of one man with a singular vision writing a great story about women. Even two fellows combining their talents to spin a yarn about the fairer sex is somewhat common. But when 12 testicles try to create a romantic-comedy with half a dozen significant female characters and a leading man who's barely more than eye candy, the result has all the tenderness of an assembly line and as much charm as a baseball player scratching his crotch.You can forgive the conceit that Monica Potter is playing an average woman who moves in with 4 fashion models. I mean, this is Hollywood so a standout beauty like Potter is as close to average as their tiny brains can come. You can even forgive the models being played as the sympathetic cheering section for Potter's character, even though they're portrayed as stupid, shallow and materialistic. Though inappropriate for their role, that's far more personality than "best friend" characters usually get in rom-coms. What you can't forgive is how Head Over Heels is clearly broken up into three sections that are practically different genres.It starts out with 30 minutes that includes almost every rom-com cliché, including the woman walking in on her cheating boyfriend, a makeover musical montage and a romantic misunderstanding. That segues into a half hour parody of "women in peril" flicks, though somewhat in reverse. Here, the woman sees the guy kill someone and then falls in love with him. Everything wraps up with 30 minutes of action-comedy involving international smuggling, fisticuffs at a fashion show and a cunnilingus sight gag. Not a brief one, either. The bit goes on for the better part of 30 seconds in a PG-13 film. That must have been a proud day for the motion picture ratings board.Amanda (Monica Potter) is an art restorer with terrible judgment about men. When she catches her latest boyfriend cheating on her, she needs a new place to stay and gets taken in by 4 models (Shalom Harlow, Ivana Milicevic, Sarah O'Hare and Tomiko Fraser). Amanda is weak kneed at the sight of a handsome stranger (Freddie Prinze Jr.) who turns out to live in the building across the way, his apartment positioned just so Amanda can see in his windows any time she wants. At first she thinks he's a dreamboat, then Amanda remembers her awful luck with guys and looks for a flaw. He turns out to really be a dreamboat, then Amanda sees him beat some girl to death with a baseball bat. Her horror at that lasts less than 10 minutes and she's back mooning over him, only to eventually discover he has a big secret, just not any one she suspected.The bottom line on Head Over Heels is that it's badly written in exactly the way you'd expect when 5 or 6 chaps each stick their paws into a romantic-comedy stew. Here's a good example of what I mean. Amanda spends virtually all of the film in the company of the 4 models. They are her support system, her humorous foils and plot devices upon which a lot of the movie depends. Except, when Amanda is introduced to the audience she already has a best friend at her art restoration job, a friend which is then dispensed with so Amanda and the models can team up. Her original best friend is absent for at least 90% of the film and brought back at the end for a couple of jokes. So, why was the original best friend kept in the script? It's the same reason why the story shifts through three different genres. With so many separate creative voices, especially male ones, a single narrative vision could never emerge.Monica Potter is adorable, Freddie Prinze Jr. is generically handsome and Head Over Heels at least makes consistent attempts at being funny. A lot of those attempts are old hat and some are oddly crude, but a few laughs make it through. Yes, the characters are all morons and you don't actually care what happens to them. Reasonably appealing stars and an honest effort to entertain can sometimes be enough, however, and that might have been true here. The tripartite fiasco of the plot is what ultimately dooms this motion picture.This isn't as annoying as most bad rom-coms. That's not enough to make it worth anyone's time.

Yet, I found myself laughing. Perhaps it can be attributed to a possible chemical imbalance at the time or not enough sleep, but I enjoyed it.I suppose the reason why was that I immediately began to recognize it as a parody. It isn't meant to be realistic or serious.Amanda Pierce's beginning dialogue is what immediately caught my attention. She was always attracted to the wrong guys, who, when caught in the middle of cheating, would say "This isn't what it looks like".As a result of one too many heartbreaks, she tried to envelope herself in her work, which was restoring old paintings. That's a profession you don't see very often in the movies, but it was fitting for Amanda.What can I say? I feel a little guilty, but the movie was "cute" for lack of a better word. Monica Potters and Freddie Prinze Jr. had good on-screen chemistry.Though again, I repeat- the movie isn't realistic, serious, or deep. So if you're not in the mood for fluff? You'll probably want to avoid it.

I caught this movie on TNT today and am honestly surprised by how many people on this board think it's a delightful romantic comedy. Almost everything about it is contrived, ill- conceived, and just plain un-funny. It annoyed me from the very beginning, when the woman's co-worker brought her a coffee whilst she was RESTORING A RENAISSANCE PAINTING. I'm usually not nit-picky about little details like this, but come on! It's highly unlikely, nay impossible, that the Metropolitan Museum of Art would allow their restorers to sip coffee around 600 year old paintings. It's a little thing yes, but it just goes to show how slipshod this movie really is. Don't ask me why I actually sat through the entire thing, because I honestly don't know. It was a little like rubbernecking a trainweck, I guess.

My girlfriend warned me for Potter's movie 'I'm with Lucy', and Prinze Jr. isn't the greatest actor alive (as we all know), but I still decided to give this one a chance... I regret I did.The story starts as Potter finds her boyfriend cheating, and her looking for another place to live. Now this is where the movie makes a mistake. Normally, I'm not that big on complaining about small details in a movie but when the movie sucks, I have to comment. What happened? Potter's character decides to live with 4 models, who apparently need her 500 dollars a month for pocketmoney... but why? As we progress in the movie it shows these models live for free, get thousands of dollars for their modelling and when they have a $1200 dinner the check gets picked up by some boyfriend... Just a mistake? Well, an annoying one.Then let me talk about a second mistake. It is a pretty depraved one. First of, we see Potter attacked quite sexually by a dog. And it's intented to have a sexual meaning. It really made me sick. Not nearly as much though as the comments of the 'Australian' model, who talkes about her uncle playing charades (or something) with her, completely naked. Such stupid jokes about phedophiles and incest I find hard to take in what is a romantic comedy. So please, next time, take them out.Back again to the story and Amanda, Potter's character. One day she meets Jim (Prinze Jr.), and (surprise surprise) falls for him. It turns out he's the neighbour across the street. They meet again at a party, once more on the street and... fall for each other. Why? Erm... dunno. But it fits nicely in the story I guess. Now all this happens during the first 30 minutes. So you know there's gonna be a mix-up, a surprise, something that's gonna drive the two lovers out of each other. Is it an old boyfriend? A secret from the past? No, this is where the movie takes quite a different turn than all those other romantic comedies... (TAKE WARNING, SPOILERS BEGIN NOW)... One night, Amanda sees how Jim kills a woman across the street (well, at least, that's what she thinks).Now, this is where the movie can go two ways. Either Jim IS the killer and it turns out to be a thriller kinda movie, or he isn't (and we all know it) and it's just a goofy comedy. But the movie doesn't decide... So we hear Jim talking about how 'the girl isn't a problem anymore' which can be interpreted a thousand ways. So we just don't know. But then, the key moment in the movie. Amanda finds out the woman she thinks she saw really was murdered, so she knows (well, she thinks she knows :)) Jim is the killer, and she confronts him... and finds out he ISN'T, but an FBI agent pretending. So we, the public, only think for less than 10 seconds he really is the killer... this is all the excitement the movie offers. As we say in Holland, it's neither meat nor fish (I love that expression). So let's just think what would happen if Jim flat-out said: 'yeah I killed the b*tch'. Now, this would have fitted his role. Us at home would really think he IS a killer. Excitement. Now THAT would be an OK movie...The rest of the movie is just a silly wrap-up of a bad thriller kinda movie (Miss Congeniality comes to mind). Only good part is that the end is at a fashion-show by Alfredo's... I really hope that's a tribute to Hitchcock (and his Rear Window). For the rest: yuck! 2/10.