By KARRI LIN
If you are looking for that Miss Right in your life, you can certainly identify with “The Bachelor.” The film explores the male views on life before and after matrimony.
When all his guy friends start marrying off, Jimmie Shannon (Chris O’Donnell) finds himself pressured into proposing to his girlfriend, Anne (Renee Zellweger). However, Anne turns down his lame proposal because she sees that he truly yearns to remain unattached.
In less than an hour after Anne storms from the restaurant, Jimmie learns his grandfather had passed away leaving him with $100 million on one condition. Jimmie has to get married before his thirtieth birthday, which happens to be the next day.
With his best buddy Marco (Artie Lang), family attorney, stockbroker and a priest standing by, Jimmie must find someone, anyone, who is willing to marry him for love or money.
The film starts out by comparing bachelors to a pack of mustangs galloping free on the plain. The analogy shows the commitment to marriage as a lasso around a man.
The film heavily mocks the sacredness of marriage through the male characters’ experiences with marriages. It uses Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to dramatize how men feel about marriage.
Marriage literally becomes a joke when Jimmie asks every girl he ever dated to marry him just to split the cash. Later, an advertisement in the newspaper makes him the most wanted bachelor in San Francisco and forces him to think about marriage seriously.
O’Donnell has disappointed me in many of his recent films (“Batman and Robin”) but delivers a fitting performance this time. He is perfect as an egoistic male who realizes being a bachelor equals loneliness.
Zellweger has an open manner that makes her approachable and lovable. Anne’s sister, played by Marley Shelton, adds some true aspects to the “girl talk.”
Even though Macro got married early in the film, he spends much more time with Jimmie than with his own wife. His negative attitude and side comments drove me up the wall.
“The Bachelor” also includes many celebrities acting as Jimmie’s ex-girlfriends. Brooke Shields successfully transforms her goody-two-shoes image for a snobbish, chain smoking role.
Mariah Carey plays yet another ex-girlfriend who is a melodramatic opera singer that has completely forgotten about Jimmie, let alone thinking about marrying him.
I was troubled with how each of Jimmie’s past girlfriends has some shortcomings when he is not exactly Mr. Right according to my standards. I failed to sympathize and accept Jimmie as a good guy.
“The Bachelor” is rated PG-13 for its inappropriate language and minor sexual references.
