After already conquering the boxoffice this year with The Proposal, the reigning queen of the romantic comedy is back again with All About Steve.  However, whereas the promotional materials make this new Sandra Bullock vehicle appear to be a romantic comedy, it’s really not.  My note I jotted down during the film simply asks: “What kind of movie is it?”  Unfortunately, I don’t think that question was ever raised during production and the result is fairly messy.

Bullock stars as Mary Horowitz, a single, brainy crossword puzzle creator for the Sacramento Herald.  Her parents have set her up on a blind date with Steve which she plans to cancel, but when a group of elementary students poke fun at her singleness, she decides to go forward.  When she sees that Steve is quite the looker—and not gay, as she expected—she makes the decision then and there that he is the one; he is her ticket to normal.  From now on, her life will be All About Steve. 

Steve is a cameraman for a national news agency and his work takes him all across the country.  He uses this as an excuse to get away from the clingy, gabby Mary, but due to a miscommunication, Mary thinks that Steve wants her to be with him on the road.  Cheery stalking ensues.

From this point on there is none of the romantic element required to consider the film a romantic comedy as there is no return affection from Steve.  Mary is simply a stalker.  Another possible love interest is introduced, but that plotline is never really taken anywhere. 

The entire mid-section of the film is all over the place, not just geographically, but story-wise as well.  The movie ventures into Twister territory and then shifts into Ace in the Hole land.  The film even seems to become confused over its male lead, as it becomes less than “all about Steve” near the end, and more about newsman Hartman; and neither of these men is the introduced love interest I mentioned earlier.

Perhaps the film that All About Steve most closely resembles is last year’s Happy-Go-Lucky, which featured a Golden Globe winning performance by Sally Hawkins in a role very similar to the one Bullock is attempting here.  The difference is that whereas a little bit of Hawkins’ Poppy certainly went a long way, Bullock’s Mary is obtrusive to the point where the audience doesn’t want to get close enough to her character to identify with her.  Actually, as an audience, we identify more with the busload of passengers who decide at one point that the chatty know-it-all would be better off on the side of the road.

I’ve always been a big Sandra Bullock fan—even to the point even where some ex-girlfriends were jealous—but her natural appeal and playfulness are too far hidden beneath the surface of the overzealous Mary.  The movie may have taken its name from a Bette Davis classic, but it is far from a classic itself.

All About Steve is rated PG-13 for “sexual content including innuendoes.”  There’s no Austin Powers-esque nudity like in The Proposal, but the innuendoes are there in spades. 

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of All About Steve.