Movie Review: Just Married

Just Married

A combination of the classis "love affair between two young people from opposite ends of the social strata" and an "everything that can go wrong will go wrong" honeymoon make Just Married the proverbial comedy of errors.

Ashton Kutcher plays Tom Leezak, an attractive and carefree young man who has a part-time job as a late night radio traffic reporter, but has ambitions to be a sportscasteer. Entirely by accident (literally), he meets the beautiful, blonde, and rich Sarah McNerney (Brittany Murphy), and the two promptly fall head over heels in love. Despite surprisingly understated objections from her family (with a mother who welcomes Tom to the family by insisting he can now call her "Pussy" and a father who has stayed closerthanthis to Sarah's ex-boyfriend, it often seems the family has bigger psychiatric fish to fry anyway), the two marry and embark on a European honeymoon. It's then that the disparity between the lifestyles of the newlyweds really comes to light, and havoc is wreaked on hotels and the relationship alike.

Just Married isn't going to win any awards, but neither is it a bad movie. Ashton Kutcher's mugging gets old, but his gift for physical comedy is considerable. And Brittany Murphy, who has had success in dramatic roles in the past (starring in 8 Mile and Don't Say a Word), shows a very real flair for humor herself. (It doesn't hurt that Kutcher and Murphy, who are reportedly now a couple in real life, have some significant chemistry onscreen.)

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Just Married is rated PG-13. There's no rough language, no overt nudity, and the sex is largely implied rather than detailed. There are a couple of scenes wherein the newlyweds are tempted by others, but neither circumstance is overly graphic. Teenage girls will almost certainly adore this movie; teenage boys will almost certainly not. For adults, Just Married is neither more nor less than a diverting two hours, which is not necessarily a bad thing.