Someone Like You on DVD

Ashley Kinnear Hugh

A pretty good romantic comedy, Someone Like You stars Ashley Judd as Jane Goodale, who works behind the scenes in TV, and behind the scenes is where her love life appears to be as well.

She's looking for Mr. Right but keeps finding Mr. Wrong, and this is causing her to develop some theories about men and women and the interaction between them.

Then she meets Ray Brown (Greg Kinnear), a nice guy who's in a relationship but with whom she starts her own relationship, one that looks as if it's going to really take off. They decide to move in together and Jane's world is a happy place.

Until Ray dumps her and goes back to his previous flame (we find out later in the film who this old flame is, and she's someone too close to Jane for comfort).

Jane, devastated, resumes her theorizing about the male beast and why it can't commit.

Meanwhile, needing a place to stay, she moves into the apartment of another co-worker, the office male chauvinist pig Eddie Alden (Hugh Jackman). They're like gasoline and water, but she needs a place to stay.

Jane's pet theories about the male/female relationship come to the attention of her best friend (Marisa Tomei), who works for a major magazine and decides to publish them for Jane, under and assumed persona. They cause a sensation, and Jane suddenly finds herself with this secret life a la Tootsie - with an equally "Tootsie-like" denouement at the end.

It's all pretty predictable, but Judd and the rest of the cast do good jobs in their roles and you end up caring enough about them to let the movie drag you along with it. The best thing, besides Judd, is the hate-love relationship between Goodale and Eddie. In the end, Someone Like You comes off as a lightweight but enjoyable romantic drama/comedy (there just aren't that many laughs to call it a real comedy): a "chick flick" that won't make men gag.

And how often can you say that?

The DVD is in anamorphic widescreen, 16x9 TV compabitible, with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio and the picture and sound are up to the DVD standards, though there's a bit of softness to the picture that may have been intentional on the part of director Tony Goldwyn. There's a surprising amount of extras, too, for a "non special edition" disc of a pretty small movie in the grand scheme of things. There's a director's commentary, a featurette on the production, an alternate ending (which is actually superior, except for the horrible video quality on it). You also get 7 alternate scenes, 5 TV spots and the trailer.

Someone Like You, from 20th Century Fox Home Video
97 min. anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital 5.1
Starring Ashley Judd, Greg Kinnear, Hugh Jackman, Marisa Tomei, Ellen Barkin
Produced by Lynda Obst
Written by Elizabeth Chandler, Directed by Tony Goldwyn.

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