Rumour Has It [DVD] [2005]

Another sit-com type, light-hearted, and feel good movie that got ravaged by the critics when it was released in the theatres. Rumor Has It isn't all bad, in fact, largely due to the performances of the A-list cast members, it's a pleasant little screwball comedy occasionally peppered with some clever dialogue. Although the movie's denouement doesn't really live up to the promise of it's opening, there's lots of fun to be had and there's something intrinsically likeable about all the characters.

Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston) and her boyfriend Jeff (Mark Ruffalo) are on their way to her ditzy younger sister's wedding in Pasadena. Sarah and Jeff also plan to get married, but of late, a feeling of insecurity has been plaguing Sarah. Her initial diffidence is reinforced when she learns that members of her family were the inspiration for the book and 1967 film, The Graduate - and she just might be the offspring of the liaison.

Jeff is initially weary of Sarah's investigations, but when he discovers there's a huge question revolving around the date of her birth, Sarah is compelled to seek out the truth. Was her Granny Catherine (Shirley MacLaine) in fact Mrs. Robinson? And was that Benjamin Braddock, so famously played by Dustin Hoffman, in fact an entrepreneurial Internet shark called Beau Burroughs, played by Kevin Costner?

It's all terribly far fetched and the material is undoubtedly light-weight, contrived and rather predictable, but director Rob Reiner imbues his characters with such a fine sense of loving earnestness that it is impossible not to get caught up in all the shenanigans of the Huttinger family. Shirley MacLaine gets the best lines as sharp-witted, cynical and world-weary Catherine who tosses alcohol fuelled acerbic barbs at the drop of a hat.

By the time Sarah wakes up at a seaside villa in San Francisco not knowing where she is, perhaps enamored of her new potential father, we know we have been kidnapped by the fantasy. And as the main story begins to wear out steam, Reiner beefs up the screenplay, with subplot of Sarah's neurotic sister, Annie (Mena Suvari) and then introduces a zany character (Cathy Bates), who was around at the time and knows a few secrets.

It's thanks to the charisma of Aniston, Ruffalo and Kevin Costner as the aging Romeo, the smooth-talking classic charmer that the movie mostly works. Ruffalo - who is always good - manages to bring some of his ineffable charm to the role of Jeff, and Aniston, who has the central role of the tortured, conflicted, self doubting and generally messed up 20-something trying to find herself, is her usual competent and quirky self.

I guess you could wrap up Rumor Has It by saying it's a film with a meagerly clad premise that works as a type of cheery and optimistic farce, but don't expect anything that rises above mediocrity. Mike Leonard May 06.

This is a slightly above-average romantic comedy, but would have been much less so if it weren't for the luminescence of the star power assembled by Rob Reiner.

Jennifer Aniston plays Sarah Huttinger, a cutesy-pie, ditsy and often confused young woman, who is engaged to a perfect man (Mark Ruffalo) but who is unsure of her feelings towards marriage. Now living in New York, she and her fiancé travel to her hometown of Pasadena to attend her sister's wedding, and while there, events lead Sarah to the shocking revelation that her family may have inspired the story of "The Graduate", and that the timing of her birth raises a few questions about her biological father.

Her mother having passed away when she was nine, Sarah confronts her grandmother (a show-stealing brilliantly cast Shirley MacLaine), and then sets off on a man-hunt for Beau Burroughs (an unbelievably charming and entertaining Kevin Costner), the man who inspired the Benjamin Braddock character.

Doing her detective work efficiently, she tracks him to San Francisco, where he puts some of her fears to rest on the one hand, but stirs up a hornet's nest with the other. Her relationship with her fiancé deteriorates rapidly, but when she is called upon to calm her sister's anxieties about marriage, she realizes that she should listen to herself sometimes on matters of the heart.

A shaky script that is admirably supported by the cast, but all the kudos belong to Shirley MacLaine who made this movie watchable.

Hey hey hey.- 3.5 stars

Amanda Richards

Rumour has it that 'Rumor Has It' is a pretty good film. This will by no means be an Oscar contender, but as a pleasant diversion on a weekend afternoon, or possibly as a date movie (for those who still go on dates), this could be a winning movie. Jennifer Aniston, late of 'Friends', plays a role that is in many ways reminiscent of the Rachel role - she is a transplanted New Yorker, returning home to L.A. (actually, Pasadena, which becomes a running joke) with her as-yet-unannounced fiancé to attend her younger sister's wedding. We learn all of this in the first few minutes, possibly before the credits are done scrolling on the screen - the frenetic pace of 'Friends' is still here.

Rumour has it that there was a family in Pasadena that the film 'The Graduate' is based upon - Sarah (Anniston) fixates upon the idea that this may be her family. She questions her grandmother (Shirley MacLaine, but don't call her grandmother), who tells of a possible affair her mother had with a playboy before her marriage (Kevin Costner, now a dot-com mega-millionaire). Sarah goes off without her fiancé in search of her mother's past, but finds a past of her own, of a sort.

Lots of twists and turns in the film have the characters racing up and down the coast of California in search of the past, the future, and the truth, which ends up being both expected and unexpected in this complicated but easily-followed plot.

There aren't major effects and major surprises here. The situational comedy is very much in keeping with an extended version of a comfortable television show, even with the star power of MacLaine and Costner backing Anniston up. The writing is serviceable with occasional flashes of true wit, and the pace of the film is even and pleasant. In all, this is a good film, well worth seeing for a bit of entertainment. Director Rob Reiner does have a talent for good films, and this is one of them.