Colin Firth
Writer: Mimi Hare, Clare Naylor, Bonnie Sikowitz
Director: Griffin Dunne
The Accidental Husband has odd casting. Or maybe it’s perfect casting, all things considered. It’s an indie film which has accidentally picked up a good casting agent who’s got hold of the likes of Uma Thurman and Colin Firth somehow, but such things can be easily over looked – especially to someone as celebrity-blind as I (I could probably vaguely pick Tom Cruise out of a line up, but I’ve never seen one of his films). No, the strangest part of the casting comes in the form of the romantic lead, one Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the everyman of the actual indie film Live!, which I highly suggest you go out and buy immediately.
The aim of The Accidental Husband, at least initially, is to make you hate Uma Thurman. Or maybe it was Morgan; it all becomes rather complex yet simple pretty fast. The thing is, however, whatever happens in the story, Morgan’s character here – a good-natured yet heartbroken firefighter – is too immensely likeable for you to give a damn about anyone else.
Sure, the fact he gets revenge on someone who, despite having never met him, ruined his life, is fair enough. That he gets it by marrying her, via the hacking skills of his teenage best friend, is kooky in the indie rom com kinda way; the friend-still-in-childhood adding to it in a way 500 Days of Summer could only ever dream of. From then on we fall into the gentle slew of a smile-inducing rom com; the sort of thing perfect for a girl’s night in (or a 20 year old male insomniac fan of Firth).
The Accidental Husband is a pleasant film that makes you wonder why men with greater talents choose to act together in paycheck movies with montages dubbed by Nouvelle Vague covers of Buzzcocks classics. It just can’t make you care. Actually, I’ll rephrase that. In all likelihood you care enough to wanna go for a beer with Morgan’s character, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t what the filmmakers were going for. Why he’s interested in a bitch like Thurman – who doesn’t even look anything close to her best here – I’ll never know. Maybe it’s because everyone keeps drawing attention to the fact they’re the same height? Some men look for odd things in women.
Morgan is just too damn charming for this. He’s a damn good actor too, but in some ways he makes me see what the Americans see in Hugh Grant. It’s an ok way to kill a couple hours, Morgan is by far the standout, Firth does his usual oh-I-can-act-but-I-can’t-be-bothered-as-it’s-a-rom-com take, Thurman’s presence upon screen is annoying as usual; there’s just nothing to care about. It’s all predictable save Morgan’s tattoos. You’d think he’d be able to afford a decent artist.
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