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What Happens in Vegas (2008)
Release Date:
Tuesday, August 26, 2008

MPAA Rating:
PG-13

Rating Reason:
for some sexual and crude content, and language, including a drug reference

Genre:
Comedy, Romance

Starring:
Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher, Rob Corddry, Lake Bell, Michelle Krusiec, Dennis Farina, Krysten Ritter, Jason Sudeikis, Queen Latifah, Zach Galifianakis

Written By:
Dana Fox

Director:
Tom Vaughan

Official Site:
What Happens in Vegas (2008)

Synopsis:
Set in Sin City, the storyline revolves around two strangers who wake up to discover they got married sometime during the previous night's drunken festivities, with one of them winning a huge jackpot on the other's quarter. The couple set out to undermine each other and claim the coin, only to fall in love along the way.

What Happens in Vegas (2008) | Review

Stumbling into Perfection
Elisabeth Leitch

Content Image
When it comes to dating, I must confess that I barely have a single idea of what I am looking for in a man. I do not have a list of every quality my ideal man should posses. I have not narrowed down my candidate pool to gentlemen of a certain type. And were you to hand me a stack of resumes which included the man I will one day marry, I probably would not be able to pick him out.

Sounds like a recipe for dating too many of the wrong guys, staying with all the wrong guys for too long, and missing all the right ones every time they come near? Believe me, that fear has crossed my mind. It sounds something like "doomed to never find a guy even close to being right for me due to utter cluelessness." But last month when I decided to join an online dating site, and the other day as I watched What Happens in Vegas, it struck me that I do have an idea, albeit quite vague, and that that idea is not only okay, but maybe even better than the most detailed list I could ever come up with.

As I said in response to a question about what I am looking for in a potential partner, I am looking for someone who brings out the best in me, and someone in whom I bring out the best. As one of the gentleman I am currently getting to know said, he is looking for someone who makes him feel like he can do anything. And as I watched Ashton Kutcher's Jack Fuller and Cameron Diaz's Joy McNally go from hostile Vegas newlyweds to loving couple, it made me smile to see that those same thoughts were very much at the center of their journey to discovering their perfect partner also.

whiv002.jpg (57 K)The story of What Happens in Vegas pretty much goes like this: Joy gets dumped by her longtime boyfriend and fiancè. Jack gets fired from the family business by his father. Both go to Vegas for the weekend to blow off some steam. Fate brings them together, drunkenness gets them hitched, and before they have a chance to undo what has been done, they win a 3 million dollar jackpot together.

Jump to a New York City courtroom where a judge hands them a wedding license instead of an annulment, denies their divorce, and refuses to award either one the money until they have tried to make their marriage work for at least six months. At first, the plan is to stick it through. But when both realize that they can get all the money if only they get the other to back out, the game changes. In the scenes that follow, the battle to break the other wages much like How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days (except that both parties are aware of the exact nature of the war they are waging). And in a similar fashion, even as their sabotage tactics keep raising the bar higher and higher, the depth they go to to hit hard actually ends up drawing them together instead of driving them apart.

whiv008.jpg (50 K)When we first meet Jack and Joy at the beginning of the movie, the message is that they are complete opposites. As Jack's "lady friend" says, he's not serious boyfriend or husband material. As Joy's fiancè implies, she's pretty much too serious of girlfriend or wife material. As Jack's dad says, he's too busy being the life of the party to ever be anyone's boss. And as Joy shows us, she's too busy bossing every single aspect of her life around to be the life of any party.

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