The Proposal

They may as well have called this one ‘Mis-Matched Sham Wedding Comedy’ for all the effort it makes to shake new life out of a tattered genre. Sandra Bullock (below) is ball-busting New York publishing editor Margaret Tate, whose sadistic way with her colleagues shows up both her utter wretchedness as a human being and the inherent inequalities of American employment law. Ryan Reynolds plays her nice-guy assistant Andrew Paxton, happy to accept her exploitative manner in the hope that it may lead to his eventual promotion. Yet, Margaret is Canadian, and due to a foul-up at the immigration department, the threat of deportation looms if she is unable to prove to Homeland Security that she’s married to a Yank. Knowing that Andrew’s good for it, she coerces him to pose as her husband and in order to reinforce the deception, the pair head to the scenic Alaskan heartlands for Grammy Paxton’s ninetieth.
Despite sporadically amusing performances from the two leads, this ticks all the same boxes as films like ‘Green Card’, ‘Meet the Parents’ and ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, including a perpetuation of the myth that inside every ruthless, independently minded businesswoman lies a fragile fawn just waiting to be drawn out by some buff, liberal drone. And what with this unfolding in Sarah Palin country, we’re also reminded that marriage is not something to be used to circumvent justice but a cherished gift from God. Also, the much-touted nude scene, in which Reynolds and Bullock readily engage in a game of full-frontal blind man’s buff, is about as sexy (and not to mention plausible) as Babs Windsor’s catapulting bikini top in ‘Carry on Camping’.