Picture Perfect Review

In Picture Perfect the heroine Kate - Jennifer Aniston - works in an advertising agency in New York. Her ambitions are to have a ten page layout in Vanity Fair and a billboard in Times Square. Her friend Darcy, played by Illeana Douglas - grins with approving glee and says with relish, "God, we`re shallow". Well, yes; but this is after all a Hollywood romantic comedy so what else would you expect. Kate is frustrated at work because although she has great ideas she`s overlooked for active duty. Why? - because she doesn`t have a mortgage, she doesn`t have ties that make her need this job. So Darcy invents a fianc?, Nick - Jay Mohr - whom Kate met briefly when she went to Boston for a wedding. This is an immediate turn-on for the agency sleaze Sam - Kevin Bacon, who only likes `bad girls` - that is, other people`s girls. Things get a bit sticky when Nick turns up in New York to act out his fianc? role at Kate`s request... This is sort of an entertaining film but for everything likeable or right about it there`s something really off. Jennifer Aniston, an alumnus of the TV series Friends, is attractive in her first leading role on the big screen. She has a great body and we get to see a lot of it. Maybe there`s some insight from Kate`s attraction to obvious bad boy Sam, but it`s underexplored, and while Jay Mohr turns his image 180 degrees from his role in Jerry Maguire, Nick`s a bit too nice, a bit too boring for us to work up much enthusiasm. Hair features in the film as a major distraction - hers, Sam`s - but the fact that you notice is an indication that Picture Perfect - where did they get that title? - never really takes off as a feature film, it`s a bit like blown-up Television. It`s a wry, muted sitcom.