Fix: Culture Clashes, Love At First Sight, Excellent Cast Chemistry, Rom-Coms That Are Actually Funny, You Want To Cry More About Matthew Perry
Platform: Rent or Buy It Everywhere
Summary:
After a one night stand with Alex, Isabel realizes that she is pregnant and they decide to get married. However, along with the marriage comes compromise of one’s own cultural traditions.
FYA Summary:
As a mega Friends fan, I was devastated to hear about Matthew Perry’s untimely death. Chandler’s sarcasm spoke to my twisty little soul as a child in a way that fundamentally changed me. This rom-com came out I was the tender age of ten, and, well… I was a goner then and still a goner now, twenty-six years later. I’ve actually wanted to do a Stream It on it for forever, but it’s such a favorite it’s hard to know what to say. How can I critique my baby?? But apparently last year Matthew said on Instagram that Fools Rush In was the best movie he ever made, and since I totally agree, it seems only fitting that we watch it now in his honor. *grabs the tissues*
So New Yorker Alex is a workaholic project manager who travels wherever the construction is constructioning; for this project he’s ringing in the new year opening a club in Las Vegas. Isabel is an aspiring photographer who grew up in Nevada and is extremely close with her Mexican family, like weekly family dinners with everyone close. One night, Alex and Isabel have the cutest meet-cute outside the bathroom in a Mexican restaurant and sparks fly. The next morning, Isabel slips out of Alex’s bedroom before he wakes, and that’s the last he sees of her until three months later, when she shows back up…pregnant.
Impulsively, they get hitched that very night (it IS Vegas, after all). Isabel is a dreamer who believes in fate and that the universe gives you signs, while Alex believes life is only what you make of it. Between culture clashes, family squabbles, and their own insecurities, they’ll spend the rest of the movie figuring out if this marriage was a wise decision or if they really are too different to last.
Familiar Faces:
Matthew Perry as Alex and Salma Hayek as Isabel
Alex IS Chandler, minus a good group of friends but with more confidence and far fewer sweater vests. And that’s totally fine because I love Chandler, and Matthew brought such a charm to Alex even when he’s (occasionally) being shitty.
I had SUCH a girl crush on Salma Hayek because of this movie. She’s so freaking adorable and expressive as Isabel, and it’s super easy to see why any dude would fall head over heels for her in one conversation.
These two have such an easy, beautiful chemistry, and as crazy as some things get, you still root for them to be together. I liked that in their struggles to be a couple, neither of them were totally in the right or wrong. Their separate lives were so fundamentally in different places when they met that however things washed out someone was going to have to give up a lot. And that’s never easy, even if you love AND know your partner well.
Siobhan Fallon Hogan as Lanie and Jon Tenney as Jeff
Siobhan, as a side-character actor, is in so many things, but in my house she’s best known for the weird ways she says “sugar water” and “Edgar suit” in that Men in Black scene when she’s explaining how the alien took over her husband’s body. Lanie is Isabel’s level-headed, jaded roommate because it’s legally mandated that every rom-com lead needs a bestie.
Jon is another multi-credited sidekick from a ton of TV shows you’ve probably watched, and he plays Alex’s smarmy, divorced BFF who thinks Alex is insane for marrying some chick he knocked up.
These two snipe at each other constantly while sticking up for their friends, and I love it.
Carlos Gómez as Chuy
Chuy is Isabel’s ex and longtime family friend who she’s planning to break up with when she meets Alex. He’s just one of the many people in Isabel’s life Alex has to prove his worth to. Name a TV show and you’ve probably seen Carlos in at least one episode; he’s one of those faces that you always see out and about and say, “oh, that guy!”
Beth Broderick as Tracey
Tracey is a very bit part; she’s some businesswoman related to the club who wants Alex, but ten-year-old me was tickled to see Aunt Zelda playing such a different character.
John Bennett Perry as Alex’s Dad and Jill Clayburgh as Alex’s Mom
Alex’s dad is played by Matthew’s real-life dad, which now makes me 😭. When the parents all finally meet up you start to understand why Alex is the way he is, and it results in a scene of extreme secondhand embarrassment as they are awful (though they do get horrible sunburns as comeuppance, and, side note, the soundtrack for this movie is excellent; as they roll stiffly up the escalator, “Fever” by Peggy Lee plays in the background—“heat up ‘til you sizzle”—and it’s *chef’s kiss*).
Couch-Sharing Capability: Date Night
This is actually a rom-com your SO will enjoy, so feel free to share with a partner! But if one of those is in short supply, you can’t go wrong with watching with a friend. Bonus points if you discuss what you’d do in Alex & Isabel’s situation, and make your judgments on those choices Isabel makes in the last third of the movie.
Recommended Level of Inebriation: Vegas-Themed Cocktails
I’ve never actually been to Las Vegas, but I can use my imagination. Go for something electric blue in an oversized martini glass, or perhaps something with an agave tequila or a fancy mule to evoke the sense of the desert.
Use of Your Streaming Subscription: Required Viewing
The chokehold this movie has had on my psyche! My friend sang “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” at my wedding because of that freaking ending. Pretty much all the lines, but especially Alex’s declaration to Isabel before they get married, are burned into my brain. I am that person who talks along with the characters and no I do not apologize.
“…Because you’re the one. You’re everything I never knew I always wanted. I’m not even sure what that means, exactly, but I think it has something to do with the rest of my life.”
I say that second sentence ALL the time because little me thought it was just so profound. Alex is so earnest and Matthew was so adorable, I swooned.
I struggle to think of another rom-com that is set in Las Vegas without really being ABOUT Vegas. Like Isabel says, there’s more to Vegas than the strip, and we see the characters in various places like the Hoover Dam, family dinners in normal suburban neighborhoods, hanging out on breathtaking cliffs with beautiful sunsets, and even a stop in a tiny rural town in Mexico.
The director, Andy Tennant, actually directed some other choice rom-coms of the time like freaking Ever After (directed AND wrote the screenplay; good for you, Andy T!), Sweet Home Alabama, and the seminal Mary-Kate and Ashley movie, It Takes Two. (And also Hitch and Fool’s Gold, for which I have no strong feelings.) So it’s in good company!
If you’ve never watched it, please do yourself a favor and do so. And if you HAVE seen the movie, join me in the comments to discuss your favorite Matthew Perry moments. RIP, you wonderfully awkward soul. You will be missed.
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