Review: Did You Hear About the Morgans?

A better title for Did You Hear About the Morgans? would be, “Did You Hear About the Movie That Sucks?”. It’s a shame because you have two fairly fun actors (Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker) in a fish-out-of-water storyline and it could have been funny, or at least smile-worthy. Sadly, any attempt at humour is uninspired and forced and the movie fails on all levels.

Big shot New York lawyer Paul (Grant) and big shot New York real estate agent Meryl (Parker) are a married couple who separated three months ago. Trying to get her back since they split, Paul has been sending Meryl elaborate gifts on a regular basis (things like stars named after her and ice sculptures). When he finally gets her attention he invites her out for dinner. Dinner is tense and strained but they decide to go for a walk after so they can talk some more. While walking they witness a murder and are spotted by the killer, who happens to be a trained assassin. The FBI puts them in the witness protection program and ships them off to Ray, Wyoming.

Stuck in the desolate town of Ray together with their police escorts Clay (Sam Elliott) and Emma (Mary Steenburgen) they have to change their names and live without access to cell phones, the Internet or anyone back in New York. And they have to stay together in Clay and Emma’s house until a more permanent location is ready for each of them. You can guess where the film goes from there to get to its happy ending.

Every big-city-person-in-a-small-town cliche is used in this film. Not knowing what a discount store is? Check. Loving the discounts in said store? Check. Milking a cow? Check. Riding a horse? Check. Scary encounter with local wildlife? Check. Shooting a gun for the first time? Check. Shooting a gun for the first time and being good at it and or getting hurt doing it? Double check. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since writer-director Marc Lawrence’s previous films include the cliche-ridden Two Weeks Notice and Music & Lyrics (which are both far superior films in this genre than Did You Hear About the Morgans?).

Besides the horrible script the biggest mistake with this movie was the casting of Parker and Grant. They have no chemistry and watching them stumble their way through the movie together is extremely awkward and irritating. Paul and Meryl also have annoying assistants (portrayed by Elisabeth Moss and Jesse Liebman) that only bring the movie further down into the dumps. One thing that saved the movie from completely sucking was Elliott and Steenburgen. Their characters are genuine and actually deliver a few nice moments amongst the mess of the rest.

This goes into the list of films that if you caught it on TV one Sunday afternoon it might be worth killing some time on. Should you run out to the theatre to see it? Not in a million years.

** out of 5 stars

Rated PG-13
Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Hugh Grant
Directed by: Marc Lawrence
Official Site IMDb

brian.mckechnie@citynews.rogers.com

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Top image: Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant in Did You Hear About the Morgans? Courtesy Sony Pictures.