When I received the invitation to attend an advanced private screening of Just Go With It starting Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler, I knew I needed to put the date on the calendar. I came prepared to laugh for this year’s Valentine’s release. The Movie Night, benefiting the Women’s Clinic and Family Counseling Center a low-cost safe reproductive health care facility in Los Angeles, was held at Sony Studios with a reception in the Rita Hayworth Dining Room.
The trailer prepared us for the charade by Danny (Adam Sandler), a proud commitment phoebe, who had been a jilted groom ten years earlier. Danny had spent a decade as a successful plastic surgeon bedding women with his fake wedding ring as bait. When he suddenly falls for the hot girl Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) and she finds his ring, he has to jump through hoops to get the girl.
Danny enlists the help of his assistant Katherine (Jennifer Aniston), the only woman he's never lied to, and convinces her to participate in a charade of being his soon to be ex-wife along with her children. Before you know it, everyone is together in Hawaii on one big fake family vacation. The problem with lying is you end up making up more lies to cover your lies. And so we’re told several times in the film, “Just Go With It.”
The performance by Nicole Kidman as Devlin, Katherine’s self-absorbed ex-college pal, was appropriately over the top. When Devlin coincidentally appears at the same hotel in Hawaii as the extended family, the lies got bigger and bigger until the dramatic face-off between Aniston and Kidman at the Hula Bar. This brings a whole new meaning to the term Hula hoops and was one of the funniest scenes in the movie.
Jennifer Aniston did a terrific job playing the official wing woman and laughed her way to the bank on Rodeo Drive for her Pretty Woman-esque makeover. There’s also a Bo Derek “10” moment in the film worth an honorable mention.
Although predictable in many ways, the lesson learned here is to be your authentic self. Living in a pretend world always has a shelf life that will expire. The soundtrack of the film was terrific and I went home humming “Hawaii” by the Beach Boys and secretly wished I was booking my next vacation to the Garden Isle.
Would you enlist the help of a friend as a professional wingman or wingwoman to help you with your dating challenges?
For information on the Women's Clinic, visit them at www.Womens-Clinic.org
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