The Proposal

Playing, respectively, one of New York's most powerful book editors and her much-abused assistant, Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds are quite winning in "The Proposal," in which she bullies him into agreeing to wed to save her from deportation to her native Canada. Their banter has some bite, there's chemistry between them, and together with director Anne Fletcher they've created something pleasing out of the over-mined territory of the green-card marriage.

For its first half, the movie feels like a fresher version of the mainstream romantic comedy (which makes it day-old bread rather than the usual ancient loaf Hollywood hands us). As Margaret Tate, Bullock is a breath of pleasantly bitter snappishness: "Remember, you're just a prop in there," she says to Andrew (Reynolds) as they're heading into a meeting with a colleague. Margaret is obviously cut from the stereotypical career-bitch cloth, and her colleagues loath her (they call her "It" or "The witch"). But she's talented, intelligent and committed to what she does, and thankfully, the movie pays her the courtesy of not demeaning or mocking that choice.

The role is essentially a reversal of Bullock's "Two Weeks Notice" gig, with Reynolds taking over her part as the competent assistant, and Bullock assuming the Hugh Grant identity. Andrew keeps up with her, banter-wise, which she barely deigns to notice. After three years of ministering to her every need and whim, he knows everything about her. She in turn knows nothing about him, but with a skeptical immigration official (Denis O'Hare, doing his best with a poorly scripted part) hassling them, has to get up to speed fast. So she invites herself along on a weekend trip home to see his family. Apple Pie Mom (Mary Steenburgen) and Hostile, Overbearing Dad (Craig T. Nelson) live in Sitka, Alaska, in a location so beautiful you might just forget about the prospect of winter.

The fact that Bullock is, at 44, an entirely grown up version of an American sweetheart, is not disguised at all. When Andrew's "Gamma" (Betty White) meets his "girl," she immediately amends that to his "woman." Much has been made of Bullock's nude scene (too much), her first ever, and though it's a bit of comic tease, she looks fantastic in it. But the film's costuming is even better; Bullock initially dresses like something out of the Rosalind Russell-era, with an edge of Louboutin-style modernity, then, as Margaret softens, becomes more Audrey Hepburn. She comes across as an adult with exquisite, lady-like taste and an investment banker's wallet (not a book editor's, not even one with Oprah's ear).

Bullock knows how to work an audience. She keeps a level of mischief and intelligence percolating under Margaret's frost and doesn't overdo the predictable vulnerability that every rom-com tries to pry out of its heroine. Margaret may be awful, but she's interesting. That's why it's so disappointing when the movie becomes conventional: big wedding scene, love discovered in the course of a weekend and a denouement that takes place in the company of a roomful of people who have no business listening in.

The first two conventions are more forgivable. But what would be wrong with a romantic comedy where people work things out in a room by themselves, rather than with an audience of idiots? Given the option of conducting your romantic affairs in an empty office ten steps to the left, or remaining in a room with 25 or so people who don't even like you -- all of whom appear to have the hearing of barn owls -- an estimated 99.99 percent of human beings would choose the office.

But not in Hollywood. The more people in the big love scene the better, to nod and smile and participate, stand-ins for the Kleenex-clutchers in the audience. The women in the on-screen audience ooh and ah while the men signal their lusty appreciation for the kiss/hug/bottom squeezing. Presumably writer Peter Chiarelli is following a careful formula, designed for the woman watching this on the couch late at night, to make her feel less alone.

And it does work, if you're at home with your soft heart and tub of softening ice cream. But if you're in a theater, surrounded by a teeming mass of real people whose consideration of others tends more to a reluctant agreement to stop kicking your seat after the administration of three or more dirty looks, it mostly has a refractory effect. This isn't a pan; it's a plea. "The Proposal" is fine, within a terrible genre. Why not make it better?

Also: Wack Weddings