At the beginning of the romantic comedy Someone Like You, Jane Goodale's (Ashley Judd) life is finally coming together - she has a high-powered job with a daytime talk show and is in a serious relationship with coworker Ray Brown (Greg Kinnear). But when Ray dumps his girlfriend without an explanation, Jane is left with nowhere to live and moves in with womanizing friend Eddie Alden (Hugh Jackman) while she tries to figure out what went wrong.
What Jane comes up with is the "New Cow theory," a singular idea based on the biological imperatives of various male animals. In particular, Jane studies the refusal of bull cows to mate more than once with a female, and concludes that, like cows, men lose interest with women once they've been with them. She takes as evidence the dastardly Ray and her fickle housemate Eddie.
Jane shares the theory with her best friend Liz (Marisa Tomei), who convinces her to write a column based on the idea. Before long, Jane's column is syndicated in over 300 magazines and newspapers across the country, and the anonymous author is an elusive media darling. But as Jane tries to come to grips with Ray's rejection and gets closer to her friend Eddie, she begins to realize that she may have been looking for happiness in the wrong place entirely.
Based on Laura Zigman's best-selling book Animal Husbandry and directed by Tony Goldwyn (A Walk on the Moon), the directing and acting in Someone Like You is generally clever - some scenes are downright hilarious. Hearing Hugh Jackman tell Judd "I bit myself shaving" to explain a hickey on his neck is worth the price of admission all by itself, and is not by any measure his only standout moment in the film. Ashley Judd - primarily known for her roles in action thrillers such as Kiss the Girls (1997) - proves to have unerring comedic timing. Pair the two with Greg Kinnear (As Good as it Gets), playing the sensitive, slightly sleazy type he does so well, and such supporting actresses as Marisa Tomei and Ellen Barkin, and Someone Like You, despite its rather ho-hum title, seems destined for success.
That being said, it is only the cast that saves this movie from being genuinely bad. Hugh Jackman (X-Men's Wolverine) gives a terrific performance, saving a stereotypical bad-boy character from total oblivion and lending some heart and humanity - as well as hilarity - to an otherwise flat part. Judd is likewise funny and believable as the struggling Jane Goodale.
Both Jackman and Judd, however, have very little script to work with in their admirable performances. Judd plays a neurotic career woman whose self-identity seems to revolve around the men, or lack thereof, in her life, while Jackman plays a lady-killer tough guy who chain smokes and sleeps around. According to the trailer, Goodale "finds love where she least expects it"- as if anyone in the audience has any doubt with whom she's going to end up. Stellar performances and some hilarious scenes are all that save this film from being ranked with the worst of the generic romantic comedy flicks.
Feminists might feel ashamed for finding this movie funny at all. The New Cow theory Jane espouses is nothing more than a reversed, souped-up version of the good-old biological imperative idea - the notion that women and men act the way they do because they have to. Should women stay home and have babies? Well, they can't do anything else - females of nearly all species are caregivers, the raisers of the young. Is your husband cheating on you? Not his fault, it's a biological imperative. He just wants a New Cow.
Considering this sexist plot element, in addition to a storyline that is distinctly, as Jane would put it, Old Cow (we've all seen it before, we don't want to put up with it anymore), you might not expect to enjoy the film at all. It was so funny, however, and Judd and Jackman are just talented enough, that one can't help liking it a little bit.
If you're looking for a light-hearted comedy with some good laughs, or if you happen to be a fan of Judd or Jackman, this may be what you're looking for. Perhaps the aforementioned plot deficiencies won't bother you. But if you don't tend to forgive sexist character developments or an astoundingly unoriginal storyline, Someone Like You was probably made for someone else.
