Failure to Launch

While the idea of being paid to date Matthew McConaughey may appeal to many members of the average romantic comedy audience, even their patience will be tested by this tedious exercise. Sarah Jessica Parker plays Paula, a consultant hired by the parents of 35-year-old Tripp (McConaughey) to persuade him to move out of the family home via a complicated dating procedure, this apparently being easier than just telling him to sling his hook. Needless to say, Paula falls for Tripp, but the romance is even less compelling than Tripp’s extreme sporting jaunts with his friends, in which he has lengthy run-ins with a series of angry animals. One can only surmise that this is intended as the comic element; in fact, the peripheral female characters (Kathy Bates as Tripp’s mother, Zooey Deschanel as Paula’s flatmate) are the only ones that come close to providing laughs, and they’re still off-track. Add to this a confused moral message and it’s clear that, as its title inadvertently suggests, this romantic comedy never gets off the ground.