Over Her Dead Body: December 2012

Friday 14 December 2012

Over her dead body 2008 movie

Over Her Dead Body is a romantic comedy film starring Eva Longoria, Paul Rudd, Lake Bell and Jason Biggs,directed by Jeff Lowell.

Wednesday 12 December 2012

Eva Longoria Parker, Paul Rudd, and Lake Bell star in first-time feature filmmaker Jeff Lowell's heavenly romantic comedy concerning a female psychic and a doubtful skeptic who find their fledgling love affair thwarted by the latter's recently deceased fiancée. Henry (Rudd) and Kate (Longoria Parker) were all prepared to live out their "happily ever after" when tragedy struck from out of nowhere and Kate was killed on their wedding day.

In the aftermath of the accident, a devastated Paul reluctantly takes his sister's advice and pays a visit to local psychic Ashley (Bell). Now, despite the fact that he openly questions her ability to communicate with the dearly departed, Paul can't help but fall head over heels in love with Ashley. Despite the fact that the feelings are most certainly mutual, however, their growing relationship is threatened when Kate makes it her supernatural mission to sabotage the happy couple's fledgling relationship before it starts to get serious.

Over Her Dead Body movie review

Eva Longoria Parker, as Kate, the ghost, represents the control-freak/ice-queen end of the female comedic spectrum pretty well, while Lake Bell as Ashley, the psychic, is perfectly lovely on the sweet, scatterbrained end. In the middle is Henry the vet, played by the winningly smirky Paul Rudd, and there are sidekicks drawn from the usual storeroom: the kooky sister (Lindsay Sloane) and the gay male best friend (Jason Biggs).There is no question that this movie, the first feature directed by Jeff Lowell, whose screenwriting credits include “John Tucker Must Die,” could be much worse. But it also could have been, with a little more effort, a lot better. The cast members are talented and game, but they struggle with some borderline-incompetent direction and a series of humorous situations that are less than fresh. I mean, sure, it’s always hilarious when a beautiful woman is squirted in the chest with mustard, or when Mr. Biggs’s arm catches on fire. But an extended bout of flatulence and a dessert-flambéing mishap don’t really yield big laughs. For good measure, there’s also an elderly priest and an overweight dog.

Near the end the guy rushes to the airport to catch the girl. This stunning plot development seems to have been designed either to elicit sympathy for the striking writers by giving a foretaste of the inferno of cliché into which their continued absence will plunge us all, or else to undermine that sympathy with a brazen display of hackdom. But maybe I should give Mr. Lowell a few points for originality, since this is to my knowledge the first rush-to-the-airport climax to feature a talking parrot riding in a taxi.And I liked Ms. Longoria Parker, in a curve-hugging white dress, as the desperate housewife from hell. Or whatever zone of the afterlife Kate arrives at after an errant ice sculpture fatally disrupts her wedding to Henry. Possessive and controlling even in death, she tries to keep Ashley away from her erstwhile man through a campaign of annoyingness rather like the one Reese Witherspoon used against Mark Ruffalo in the jealous-ghost romantic comedy “Just Like Heaven.”Ashley fights back rather half-heartedly, and the whole movie feels lazy and underdeveloped, in spite of the best efforts of the actors. Mr. Biggs, victim of a preposterous and unfunny plot twist, lends his knack for ungainly physical comedy, but Mr. Rudd is stranded in his own sarcasm. Ms. Bell works hardest of all and proves to be thoroughly charming in what amounts (I hope) to an audition for a better movie sometime in the near future.