Alex & Emma (2003)

Directed by Rob Reiner. Starring Luke Wilson, Kate Hudson, Sophie Marceau, David Paymer, Lobo Sebastian, Derek Barbosa, Rob Reiner. [PG-13]

In debt to Cuban gangsters and suffering from writer’s block, a novelist (Wilson) hires a stenographer (Hudson) so he can dictate an entire book to her in one month’s time. Scenes from said book are depicted by cutaways featuring Wilson and Hudson as major characters in a 1920s love triangle, giving Hudson the opportunity to trot out a few bad accents as a series of au pairs. It would be easy to excoriate the labored premise, except it faintly resembles an episode in the life of Fyodor Dostoevsky(!), so save the negative attitudes for the witless script, pedestrian romance, and tedious predictability. There also doesn’t seem to be any hint of satire when it comes to the hackneyed prose that Wilson invents on the spot (he’s portrayed as someone with talent, not the ability to pander to the masses), which any seasoned writer would tell you cannot be done at length without sounding like an A.I. bot. Cloris Leachman and Rip Taylor cameo.

30/100