June 27, 2010

Beauty and the Briefcase - Joanne

This week I am reviewing Beauty and the Briefcase, an ABC Family TV movie starring Hilary Duff.  Based on the novel Diary of a Working Girl by Daniella Brodsky, this movie is the very worst kind of chick flick - an unapologetic story of a young woman in search of a man.  Our main character is striving for a career at Cosmopolitan, and her best friend and roommate Joanne (Amanda Walsh) is a freelance fashion photographer who gets her in the door at Cosmo.  Lane doesn't do well in her pitch meeting, until she starts griping about her state of manlessness (ugh!) to the editor who is also currently single.  The two act as though this is the most horrible thing in the world, and this inspires an undercover story for Lane to take on, an unlikely opportunity for an unproven freelance style writer.  Her mission: infiltrate the "business world" and date only "men in suits".  So, she outright lies on her resume, fakes her way through an interview and sabotages the electrical system in order to get into an investment banking firm.

Feeling like "a kid in a candy store," she finds the firm bursting with all sorts of men and, more importantly, women who "aren't even trying" and goes out on a dozen dates in order to find a man who embodies her checklist - great fashion sense, same taste in food, spontaneous, whisks away to exotic locales on a whim, sexy accent, plays a sexy instrument, fearless in the face of danger, witty statements on the tip of his tongue, public fights and torrid make-up sex, passionate over common sense ...  essentially she's looking for the ideal rom-com dream guy.  And so she does, but he's not in business.  And it all turns out to be a big lie, but Lane herself admits that Liam was just giving her exactly what she wanted.  Of course, Lane does get caught out on both ends - her boss at the firm finds her diary-like article drafts, and she ends up writing the truth anyway, which still lands her the job at Cosmo.  There is also a serious lack of professionalism throughout the movie - Lane starts out rather poorly in her position as assistant, and when she decides, with prompting from her editor, that her boss Tom (Michael McMillan) is actually her soul mate because he is the exact opposite from what she said she wanted, she interrupts a meeting with a passionate speech and then they kiss in front of everyone, he lifts her up and leaves the meeting.  I don't understand why this is such a prevalent theme in rom-coms.  I guess it's a climactic cinematic gesture, but really, does this ever happen in real life?  Doubtful...

Joanne, the best friend, is pretty typical of this kind of frothy, silly rom-com.  She's sassy and supportive.  She doesn't seem too interested in finding a man of her own, though she admits to a "thing" with the cashier from the convenience store in their neighborhood.  She gets a good amount of screen time, and we actually see her at work doing photo shoots.  It's unusual to see a beta at work so often, but there are also several scenes where she is out with Lane, and then of course there is commiseration over ice cream scene.  Considering Lane's lack of morality in obtaining a job in business, it's interesting then to see Joanne attempting to talk Lane down from her precarious position she's built up with her lies - partially because she's concerned about maintaining her relationship with Cosmo, but also because she's concerned for her friends' reputation.  I think Joanne is supposed to come off as artsy and kooky, wrapping models in plastic wrap and giving ridiculous instructions to her subjects, but this aspect of her personality isn't very well maintained.  She's very concerned about the day-to-day.  She is on it enough to know that burning bridges with a major magazine would probably destroy her career.  But she also seems to have a lack of judgement on the sexual relations front, now refusing to go to the store downstairs on the chance that she could run into a hookup.  Don't sleep where you shop?  Her character isn't very consistent, but then again, maybe she's supposed to seem dynamic and human, and these inconsistencies are part of being human.  Who's to really say?  I put the novel on hold at the library, so I will find out more about who Joanne is supposed to be.  If there is a Joanne in the novel.

Stats
Screen time: 12 minutes 20 seconds
Memorable quotes: "I told you, you need to use my checklist, way more fun... Item 1: Breathing, always important in a guy, and Items 2 through 7, moot."  "This shot, it needs to be sexy but not sexual, and it needs to say I love you but not I'm in love with you, and I want you to be happy, not overjoyed."  "So you just replace the shoes and dresses with stocks and companies it's all about predicting trends, what people want to buy."  "We were going to get you a gorgeous CEO but most of them are in jail or getting government bailouts."  "'Magic Man', she thinks that a guy is going to solve everything."  "Now, the way to show off the purse, I want you to clutch it, it's the love of your life."  "Nothing like deceiving Cosmo to work up an appetite."  "Well, now that you're exaggerating characters and making things up, I want you to name me Lucy.  I'm your best friend, and the other hot girl at Thompson Fulworth and I'm using Cosmo's '10 Most Exciting Places to Have Sex in the Work Place' as an extracurricular guide."  "Aren't you forgetting your best friend who vouched for you at Cosmo.  You can't just declare your article dead."  "I told you not to date Liam, I told you not to write lies."  


No comments:

Post a Comment