Paramount Pictures 2003   Starring: Matthew McConaughey and (“staring” is all you could call it) Kate Hudson   Directed By:  Donald Petrie (also directed such movies as Miss Congeniality, Grumpy Old Men, and Mystic Pizza)   Written By:  Burr Steers (also wrote and directed Igby Goes Down) and Brian Regan (Adapted the Story of 102 Dalmatians to the screen – Oooooooh.  Aaaaaahhh.) and (yes it took three people to write this schlock) Kristen Buckley (who, oddly enough, also wrote part of that cinematic classic 102 Dalmatians).   So I got roped into this “chick-flick” but you know what, it wasn’t bad.  Maybe it is just difficult to disappoint me when I was pretty much thinking that I would not like the movie at all and maybe I am just a softie for a romantic comedy but this was okay.  I use “okay” because it wasn’t a great romantic comedy and probably wasn’t even a very good one but it gets and E for effort at least.   I thought I was going to hate this movie because the trailer made the premise look really stupid.  Somehow I was supposed to believe that Kate Hudson would be able to lose a guy and, even worse, somehow I was expected to believe that if she tried, she couldn’t.  Well, it is more complicated than that because at the same time Kate is trying to lose Matthew, he is trying to keep her to win a bet.  Of course, the really fall in love (go figure) and the movie has a happy ending (never saw that coming).   Most of this movie was cutesy funny but really ineffectual.  The woman (who was the reason I was watching this at all) who picked this movie out at the video store failed to notice any similarity between her own behaviour and that of Kate Hudson’s character who was pulling out all the stops to be a psycho bitch from hell.  Maybe the character’s behaviour was not subtle enough because every woman I have ever dated has shown at least one of the crazy techniques that Kate’s character did.   Maybe it was not the subtlety though, maybe it was that Kate Hudson, while very pretty and all that, acts about as well as a set of triplets with only one facial expression each.  Don’t get me wrong, she was better than that dear caught in the headlights actress Julia Ormond but Kate really didn’t do much other than be a funny and friendly person (which I am sure she is).   McConaughey, on the other hand, was great.  It was weird to see so much fire and spark between two people and realize that only one of them was showing it.  That is, Matthew faked spark great while Kate was kind of along for the ride.  Besides, the plot of this movie was so far removed from any kind of real life romantic adventure that I doubt it actually connected with that many people.   This is a fine movie to get you some romantic brownie points with your lady but don’t expect to fall in love all over again because of it.  It was cute and all but if you want cute go rent Finding Nemo.  If you want romantic get your hands on Cyreno de Bergerac and if you want cute and romantic rent Sleepless in Seattle.  If you have seen all of those and you still must watch this movie – then go ahead, knock yourself out (no really, do it, or the movie might), it was worth watching but it’s not the kind of movie that is going to make you want to tell everyone you saw it (oh, the irony).