Picture Perfect Review

Picture Perfect
An ambitious ad executive (Aniston) believes she needs to get a boyfriend to get ahead. But will she choose the sweet-natured wedding-video-maker or her arrogant workmate?

by Adam Smith |
Published on
Release Date:

09 Jan 1998

Running Time:

105 minutes

Certificate:

12

Original Title:

Picture Perfect

Written and directed by the creator of telly phenomenon Moonlighting (the Friends of the '80s, ironically enough) Glenn Gordon Caron, this has Jennifer Aniston, in her third big screen venture, indulging in a portion of fluffy romantic comedy blancmange.

She's Kate, a smart New York ad exec shinning her way up the corporate ladder. She has everything (talent, looks, a really good hairdo) apart from a boyfriend, heavily hinted by her boss to be the last piece of the perfect upwardly mobile ad exec's package.

Thus she makes one up in the shape of Nick (Mohr), a wedding video shooter she happens to run into. Unfortunately, Kate's workmates demand to meet the reluctant boyfriend. Thrown into the brew is office lech Sam (Bacon) who pursues Kate only when he realises that he has a rival.

Will Kate make the right choice? Will she realise that sensible Nick is really in love with her whereas nasty Sam is only after the humpage? Will she finally, erm, follow her heart rather than her head? Of course she bloody well will, for we are mired in the clichés of romcom land. It could be, and apparently originally was, a deal better, with a downbeat ending that would have at least backed up the movie's putative "looks aren't everything" message. Instead Caron, seemingly against his will, goes headfirst into an ending sweet enough to have orthodontists across the planet reaching gleefully for the pink mouthswill.

Aniston deports herself competently, here showing us nothing she hasn't on Friends, and Bacon is pretty much on autopilot as the company stud, but it is Mohr who actually shines, skilfully giving an underwritten role a genuinely deft sense of nobility and charm. Unfortunately, Picture Perfect itself stands as yet another signal that the coffee-swilling six would be better to stick together for weekly half-hour doses of quip and bon mots rather than separating and tackling the altogether more demanding big screen.

Like those photos you get inside picture frames when you buy them in the store, Picture Perfect is pretty — but also pretty vacuous.
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