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The Londoner's Guide to London
23 November 2008
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Because I Said So (12A)

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The ViewLondon Review

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Review byMatthew Turner14/02/2007

One out of Five stars
Running time: 104 mins

A shocking embarrassment for all concerned, this is a badly written, badly acted and poorly directed mess from start to finish.

What's it all about?
Diane Keaton plays Daphne, an overbearing, overprotective mother to three grown-up daughters: Milly (Mandy Moore), Maggie (Lauren Graham) and Mae (Piper Perabo). When Milly's latest relationship goes wrong, Daphne decides to find the right man for her daughter, so she posts an ad on the internet and sets about vetting the likely candidates.

Daphne settles on safe-but-dull architect Jason (Tom Everett Scott) and a blissfully unaware Milly starts dating him. However, she also starts dating single dad, Johnny (Gabriel Macht), who'd contrived a meeting with her after witnessing Daphne's audition process and being rejected.

The Bad
The biggest problem is that the main characters are so disagreeable that it's impossible to care about any of them. This is a film in which the mother is a shrill, interfering control freak, the daughter is quite happy to sleep with two men at once (whilst professing to have a serious relationship with both of them), the male lead has disturbingly stalkerish tendencies and his son (Ty Panitz) is one of the most irritating child actors ever to appear on film.

The script and the performances don't help matters either - both Keaton and Moore prattle on relentlessly, spouting dialogue that is actually painful to listen to. There is a glorious five minute respite when Daphne loses her voice, but unfortunately she gets it back again.

The Worst
Keaton's performance is so awful that it will actually make you angry, whilst Moore is both charmless and irritating. Only Lauren Graham (as older sister Maggie, the voice of reason) comes out of the film unscathed but her character is stranded on the sidelines.

Worth seeing?
This is a film that should have been strangled at birth. It's a badly written, badly acted and badly directed mess that should be avoided at all costs.

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Because I Said So (12A)
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