Danny has wife problems: she beats him, she is addicted to crack and she flirts shamelessly with every man she meets. The biggest issue of all, however, is that she isn't real.
In "Just Go With It," Danny (Adam Sandler) poses as a tragically abused married man and happily spends years picking up girls decades younger than him. This charade goes well until he meets Palmer (Brooklyn Decker).
When he decides that Palmer, a sixth-grade math teacher, is the girl of his dreams, he creates an increasingly elaborate web of lies to explain his "marriage," "children" and falsified past. Palmer buys it all. With his loyal assistant/conspirator Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) and her children posing as his ex-wife and family, Danny brings everyone to Hawaii and expects that it will somehow work out.
Remarkably, "Just Go With It" is the first movie in which Aniston and Sandler have ever acted together. The two seem to have genuine chemistry and it is the scenes they share that make the movie worthwhile. They play their usual roles but the formula still works. Sandler does well type-casted as a witty average Joe who winds up with a girl far more attractive than he is, just as Aniston seems real enough as a relatable, slightly worn-out mom. Danny and Katherine's relationship progresses believably and Aniston charms as Palmer's older, wiser female counterpart.
Unfortunately, Danny and Katherine are the only characters in the movie to show development. Despite Danny's supposed love for her, Palmer remains barely more than a saccharine sweet bimbette who appears on screen just often enough to push the plot along.
Palmer's willingness to fall for Sandler's perpetual barrage of lies is especially annoying given that she makes a point of telling Danny, when they first meet, how she can tell when he isn't telling the truth. Katherine's children also fail to seem real and their occasional sadness about the absence of their real father is particularly forced.
Though the thin supporting characters are a weakness, they provide a distraction from the smarting one-liners and sarcasm for which Aniston and Sandler are known. There might not be much depth, but that's not what the movie is aiming for.
The plot is standard Adam Sandler fare, and it manages to be engaging enough to keep the audience involved. Some scenes are even downright hilarious — Danny has plenty of cutting snarkiness to throw at Katherine, and when it turns out that Katherine's sorority arch-nemesis, Devlin (Nicole Kidman) and her husband Ian (Dave Matthews) are staying at the same resort, the girl-girl competition that ensues creates some of the movie's highlights.
Though she isn't one of the film's main characters, Kidman's couture-encrusted role steals the show in every scene and provides Aniston with an opportunity to showcase her impish girl-next-door style humor, which she rarely gets a chance to use.
"Just Go With It" doesn't attempt to be unpredictable and it doesn't have to: This is the perfect movie to see after a hard day of work. There aren't really any subplots or plot twists, and honestly, you can probably guess the ending already. Still, "Just Go With It" does have moments of genuine sweetness, manages to avoid most comedy pitfalls and is the perfect weekend study break.
