Philip Seymour Hoffman Fest: Along Came Polly

2004 romantic comedy

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 14/20)

Plot: Uptight actuary Reuben Feffer's wife leaves him for a scuba instructor on their honeymoon. He meets the titular free-spirited gal and falls for her despite their differences.

Let me make something perfectly clear: This is probably only worth watching for Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance and a two-second shot of Jennifer Aniston that a lot of guys could really get behind. Hoffman's enjoyable as the douche-ily-named Sandy Lyle in a pure comedic performance. Lyle's a jackass with no filter, the kind of character who is in no way believable as an actual human being but who you really enjoy watching. I'd love to see Crocodile Tears, the movie his character had a role in as a kid. Then again, I dig accordions. Hoffman's funny when falling, laughing, sharting, and soloing in too-tight sweat pants, but I would have really loved playing basketball with the guy. I'm adding "Make it rain!" and all the variations on the rain theme to my trash-talk repertoire. Oh, and "White chocolate!" It's actually great seeing Hoffman pull off dumb comedy. He's so funny; unfortunately, the rest of this really isn't. Aniston's ok playing the exact type of character she plays, and Ben Stiller's probably fine playing his. Hank Azaria is charmingly annoying and a little naked, but Alec Baldwin, one of the Baldwin brothers, is annoying without the charm. His accent makes him sound like an old Jewish woman from Brooklyn, and I'm sure he and writer/director John Hamburg though it was hilarious but it's really not. Neither is Baldwin's fart scene. Actually, there are a lot of anus gags in this, including the aforementioned sharting. Now, I'm never going to dis a reference to sharting. I love a good shart as much as the next moron, but the potty humor really brought this down a few notches. It doesn't quite reach Shrek levels of flatulence, but it's got about the same amount of maturity. This feels a lot like being hit in the balls with a VHS copy of There's Something About Mary.