Barely watchable blandness

The thing about romantic comedies, especially ones dealing with yuppies, is that they stand of fall on the charms of the cast. Unfortunately here the casting director dropped the ball. The lead is an unappealing sub-Baldwin clone, his buddy a bland shlepp, his wife a cold fish (they re supposed to be hot for each other, so yeah it s a problem), his ubiquitious gay helper looks lost. Only the french girl used as a romantic foil has any appeal, but even this rests on her constant pouting and doe-eyedness. The plot is paper thin, and the amount of coincidences and conveniences the writer has taken just cause weariness. The direction is all telegraphed and you don t usually see this many lighting mistakes (shadows, unmatched lighting sources, etc.) in a film shown by HBO. There s also this annoying singer used, I suppose, as a po-mo commenting device. Unfortunately the singing and the singer as bland and boring as the rest of the cast. You don t have to cast ALL your friends in the movie no matter how low a budget you have.