Honestly, the title of the movie pretty much sums up the couple’s chances of making it. But in the interest of entertaining our loyal readers, we will delve into all the ways that a match between a woman who keeps leaving fiances at the altar and the hard-nosed journalist who’s trying to expose her probably isn’t The Reel Thing.

Maggie Carpenter has a lot going for her. She has a close family, work she loves, and she looks just like Julia Roberts. When it comes to commitment, though, Maggie’s got problems. She’s already left three guys at the altar–earning herself tabloid infamy and the nickname “The Runaway Bride”–and she’s currently working on number four. When a reporter shows up in town intent on doing an in-depth article on her, this is the last thing she needs.

For Ike Graham, veteran New York City reporter, it’s personal even before he meets Maggie. After penning a column filled with errors, fueled by the vitriol of one of Maggie’s jilted exes, he’s fired from his job at the paper. He comes to Maggie’s hometown to prove that he was right about her all along.

Naturally the two do not hit it off. Ike finds Maggie to be a living affront to men everywhere, and Maggie does not appreciate the invasion of her privacy. However, as the two spend more time together, they come to understand one another better, and an attraction begins to grow. On the day of Maggie’s wedding rehearsal, a somewhat contrived turn of events has Ike standing in for the intended groom. It quickly becomes clear to everyone–including the intended groom–that Maggie and Ike have fallen for each other. Ike gets punched in the face, and Maggie gets herself a new fiance, and they live happily ever after.

NOT!

Come the actual day of the wedding, Maggie once again flees to freedom–this time on a handy FedEX delivery truck.

If this were not a Hollywood romantic comedy, no doubt this is where the storyline would begin to wonder if marriage is actually right for Maggie. When you’ve left four different men at the altar, it really is the institution, not the individual. Maybe this isn’t the right time in Maggie’s life for marriage. Maybe it never will be. And what’s wrong with that? There are a lot of ways to be happy in life. Marriage is only one of them.

But this is a Hollywood romantic comedy, so Maggie moves to the big city to pursue her career and eventually to pursue Ike. She shows up at his apartment, makes friends with his cat, turns in her running shoes, and proposes. Ike, who should run as fast and as far as he can go, says yes for some unfathomable reason. The two tie the knot and ride off into the sunset on horseback. Everyone celebrates the fact that Maggie finally got married.

We suspect there will soon be yet another wedding dress to donate to the Salvation Army. We can only hope that post-divorce Maggie will listen to what her subconscious has been trying to tell her and do men everywhere a favor by remaining blissfully single.

How many millions of dollars does it take before you can overlook a major drinking problem?

Arthur Bach is a mega-millionaire, the sole heir to a long-established family fortune. While that single feature would be enough to attract a fair number of potential wives, he is not without baggage. He’s a small child trapped in the body of a not much bigger man. Not only has he never worked a day in his life, he’s never done anything for himself in his life. Between his manservant Hobson, his driver Bitterman, and his stern but doting grandmother Martha, there’s always someone to take care of his every need. And the only thing he has to do to guarantee that he keeps getting money for the rest of his life is to marry Susan Johnson, the woman his family has hand-picked for him.

And then there’s the drinking. Most likely feeling unworthy due to his complete lack of usefulness, Arthur is a raging alcoholic. He gets drunk daily and shows up for every event in his life completely hammered; he can’t even get through his morning bath without a pitcher of martinis. And with unlimited funds behind him he can afford to drink the best every day and not have to worry about driving himself home.

Arthur does have an endearing innocence about him, and an entertaining sense of humor, although no one seems to find him as funny as he does. He loves to play and has a child’s capacity for fun. Yet there are clearly issues of insecurity lurking beneath the surface; no one drinks that much because they’re happy and fulfilled. Or asks a prostitute he just met 10 minutes before if she likes him in such earnest. As Arthur himself says, “Everyone who drinks is not a poet. Maybe some of us drink because we’re not poets.”

Into all this madness comes Linda Marolla, a tough-talking Italian girl from the outer boroughs that Arthur rescues from a shoplifting charge one day at Bergdorf Goodman. She’s poor, she’s hardworking, she’s kooky. She lies and steals. She’s different, and Arthur is immediately smitten. And of course for Linda’s part, meeting a rich and charming prince must seem like a fairytale.

But while we can understand the initial attraction between these two, we have serious doubts about their potential for longevity. And ironically we think it’s Linda that will throw in the towel first. It’s not that Arthur isn’t lovable. He’s cute, he’s caring and he’s decent. He’s got piles of money. But watching your husband drink himself into a stupor every night, standing by as he pisses away his health and his fortune, wondering if he’s going to back the car one of your kids one day, could make the price of even the largest of fortunes too high to pay.

Even if Arthur were to spend a year at Betty Ford, he’s still got a tremendous amount of growing up to do. He has no sense of self-sufficiency – he’s never had a job; he’s never even turned on the water for his own bath. And while this little quirk might be acceptable in a friend, it would wear thin fast in a spouse. We also have to seriously question his capability as a father. Yes he’d be a fun one, but would he truly be able to raise children, to teach them anything of value besides how to drink Scotch?

Arthur’s ex-fiance Susan tells him “A real woman could stop you from drinking,” to which he replies “She’d have to be a real big woman.” Unless Linda plans to start eating heavily, we don’t think she’ll be up to the task.

Side note: Yes we know there’s a remake. But much as we like Helen Mirren and Jennifer Garner, nothing could induce us to go see a movie with Russell Brand, whose career we find even more inexplicable than Adam Sandler’s.

Is there a better basis for a long-lasting relationship than a false sense of nostalgia fueled by a case of bourbon?

Not according to Mavis Gary. Mavis has come back to her hometown of Mercury, MN, to try and win back Buddy Slade, her boyfriend of 13 years ago. Now in her thirties, single, about to be out of work, and with a fairly well-developed alcohol addiction, Mavis has convinced herself that Buddy is the one she is meant to be with. And upon learning that he and his wife have just become parents for the first time, she convinces herself that he must be secretly miserable and that she’s the one that can change that. After first squeezing in one last drunken one-night-stand she wakes up, throws some things (including Dolce, her long-suffering pomeranian) into a bag and hits the road for home. She checks into a hotel and tells no one except Buddy of her arrival; her mom only discovers Mavis is home when she happens to drive by her in town.

Mavis immediately calls Buddy to see when they can meet and he suggests a place for the following evening. Even before they’ve met their differences are evident: Mavis is envisioning romantic, late night cocktails at a dark sultry bar; Buddy suggests a 6PM meeting at Champion McCoy’s, a brightly lit family-style restaurant. Convinced it won’t take much to get their relationship back on track, Mavis slips on her sluttiest dress and a lot of concealer and heads out to meet her destiny.

But Mavis is in for a rude awakening. Buddy moved on from their relationship years ago, and is in a completely different place now. His thoughts are clearly with his wife and new baby, and he sees Mavis as nothing more than an old friend. Undaunted, Mavis pulls out every trick she has to try and seduce him back into her bleak, boozy life, but Buddy is not only uninterested, he’s barely even aware of what she’s up to.

It is clear to everyone from the start that Mavis has no chance with Buddy. She’s not remotely his type, and he is completely besotted with his beautiful family. What’s also clear is that even if Mavis were to succeed in seducing her former lover, she still wouldn’t be happy. Just as Scarlett pined for Ashley, Mavis has spent years pining for someone that she can’t have and that is completely wrong for her. Buddy is sweet, simple and totally without guile, while Mavis is all jagged edges and bitter sarcasm.Buddy has responsibilities; he’s not interested in a lifestyle that involves drinking every night. Most of all Buddy is truly happy, while Mavis is simmering with repressed anger which frequently boils over. The two are completely incompatible, but while Buddy knows it, Mavis does not.

She does eventually have a small awakening, but it’s going to take at least 12 steps and a lot of therapy before Mavis is ready for a relationship with anyone. Right now she can’t even take care of Dolce, or herself, for that matter.

Cher Horowitz is clueless when it comes to matters of the heart. Actually when it comes to matters of pretty much everything else as well.

Cher’s a high school senior that spends her free time to matchmaking, usually with disastrous results. She’s convinced that she knows what’s best for everyone around her, when in fact she doesn’t even know what’s best for herself, and manages to miss even the most obvious clues. She is unaware that her best friend Elton likes her, or that Christian, the guy she likes, is gay. When new girl Tai arrives at the school, she immediately takes her on as her new “project”. She remakes her wardrobe and then spends her time throwing Tai at every guy except the one that Tai really likes, lovable stoner Travis.

Her ex-stepbrother Josh is the polar opposite. He’s honest, hard-working, and interested in politics and current events. He would never fake a broken heart to appeal to a teacher for a better grade. Yet he is somehow inexplicably interested in Cher. Cher is quite the hottie, and we can understand him having a purely physical attraction for her. But we can’t see him seriously considering a relationship with his former stepsister, who knows nothing about life beyond her own small little world and clearly doesn’t care to. As for Cher, she thinks Josh is just a book-loving nerd, but when he comes to the rescue of her friend Tai, and Cher begins to suspect that Tai’s crush on Josh is reciprocated, she suddenly decides that Josh is the one for her.

When Cher finally gets out of her own way, and everyone else’s, things do actually work out. Tai and Travis finally get together, and somehow Cher and Josh connect as well. Yet we can’t see these two lasting too long. True, Cher and Josh are not related, or even step-related any longer. Yes Cher is trying to become a better person, to learn more about the world outside of Beverly Hills, and to get more involved. And yes, the two both have a clever, sarcastic streak that provides for some interesting banter. But they still feel more like brother and sister than boyfriend and girlfriend, which makes them becoming boyfriend and girlfriend a bit icky. Cher’s interest in Josh simply feels like a case of wanting what she thinks she can’t have. And we think it won’t be long before Cher’s foolishness starts to wear on Josh’s nerves. Pretty soon he’ll head back to the library and she’ll head back to the mall.

We think we’d have to be pretty clueless to think that Cher and Josh are The Reel Thing.

Considered one of the all-time romance classics, yet it ironically features a couple that has no hope of making it. So we are hardly breaking new ground here by saying that there is no way these two should end up together. What we can’t understand is how they ever started.

Quirky, self-conscious Katie Morosky meets Hubbell Gardner at college and is publicly offended by but secretly attracted to him. He is everything she isn’t – graceful, confident, waspy to the extreme – the quintessential golden boy. Katie spends her time supporting political causes; Hubbell spends his studying, rowing, and laughing with his friends. Katie is convinced that, like his friends, he is laughing at her expense. But in fact Hubbell is decent, and deep – he’s a writer – and if he doesn’t share her beliefs he does admire her for them. And so she quickly starts to fall for him.

Several years later they meet again; Hubbell is on leave from the Navy and Katie is working at a local radio station. Stranded in the city, Hubbell accepts Katie’s invitation to stay at her place, and the two strike up a friendship, which turns into the unlikeliest of romances. Katie has never gotten over her crush and she does whatever she can to win Hubbell over. Their relationship blossoms in the city and eventually continues on the west coast when Hubbell sells his book and is invited out to Hollywood.

Frankly we just can’t see how these two ever make it as far as they do. If we were Hubbell we would have thrown in the towel after the first cocktail party with his friends. Katie is sulky, resentful, and determined to be angry, and she has an entire bag of chips on her shoulder. She has no friends other than Hubbell, which is telling. She prepares for each of these social gatherings by stockpiling every ounce of rage she possesses and then detonating it once they’ve arrived. She expects to have a bad time and so she does; she expects his friends to dislike her and so they do. Hubbell just wants to be happy and enjoy life; Katie just wants to fight. As Hubbell tells her, “you push too hard. Every damn minute. There’s no time ever to relax and enjoy living.”

Hubbell does in fact end things that night, a decision we applauded. But he is moved by Katie’s despair and rushes back to comfort her, and the two stay together. Is it callous of us to say we found her teary pleas for his affection pathetic and disingenuous? At that point we were just waiting for Cher to storm in, slap Hubbell across the face and yell “Snap out of it!”

We read once that the most successful couples are the same philosophically and opposite emotionally. Katie and Hubbell are on completely different planets not just emotionally but philosophically as well, and if the relationship had continued things would have only gotten worse. Raising children together would have further underlined their differences. There is simply no way they are ever going to live compatibly, and like so many couples they each enter into the relationship loving things about the other person but also expecting them to change. Hubbell wants Katie to be happier; she wants him to be angrier. But as we all know, none of us ever really changes our true nature.

So the question here is – do we see a future for an underage high school student and a beautiful and sophisticated call girl?

We’d have to say that’s a big fat no!

People – he’s in high school!  Oh, and there may be one other slight problem…

OK fine, we’ll play along.  We can definitely see why Joel would want to be with Lana right now – she’s stunning, she’s sophisticated, and she’s his first. And we could even see his appeal for her - he’s good looking, clean cut (a nice change from Guido and her regulars), he comes from a nice family and home, he’s crazy about her, intense and passionate, and because she’s his first he’ll never forget her.  But we think once their relationship enters the real world it will fall apart fast.

The issue won’t be on Joel’s side, at least not at first; he is certainly not going to feel uncomfortable at all bringing an older woman to the prom.  On the contrary – he’ll be the envy of all of his friends.  But how will Lana feel wearing Joel’s letterman jacket and accompanying him and 12 of his acned, drooling buddies to the local pizza parlor on Saturday nights?  Not at home, we can tell you.  She left high school, and a traditional lifestyle, behind a long time ago, and it would be impossible for her to easily slip back in.

And as crazy as Joel is about Lana now, and as much as he may admire her street smarts and business savvy, at what point is her career going to become a sore spot for him?  After a week?  A month?  A year?  The first time he invites her to dinner and his parents ask what Joel’s much older girlfriend does with her time?

Get engaged, get married, have babies?  An IRA?  Grandchildren?  Uncle Guido coming for the holidays? No, we definitely don’t see Joel and Lana going long term.  We don’t even see them making it to his mid-terms.

Kate Mosley is trying to succeed in the tough world of advertising, but despite her hard work and dedication she is frequently passed over for plum projects because she’s considered too young and immature. In order to appear more responsible to her bosses, she concocts a fake fiancé from a picture of her and Nick, a young man she recently met at a friend’s wedding. As it is inevitable that her co-workers will want to see more than a picture, she then proceeds to contact Nick and offer to pay him to visit her in New York and pose as her fiancé at an important office function.

While we can’t say that Nick is everything Kate is not, he is a lot she is not. He’s honest for one thing, quiet and trustworthy. He’s caring of others. He makes the local news after rescuing a little girl from a falling shelf in a shop; the subsequent attention makes her colleagues all the more eager to meet him. He’s his own person and makes no apologies for what he does or who he is; unlike Kate he would never pretend to be something he’s not in order to impress others. He has agreed to go along with the deception but he’s doing it for her sake and not the money, because for some reason we can’t quite figure out, he actually likes Kate, who is much more interested in jumping Sam, the office hound dog.

While we can understand Nick’s physical attraction to Kate, who is certainly physically attractive and also trots out some pretty hot wardrobe numbers, we don’t really get his interest in her as a serious girlfriend. Kate is selfish and self-centered, clearly more concerned with her career than the feelings of others. She is dishonest even with those close to her. She continues to pursue Sam even during the few days that Nick is in town, and is thrilled when her faux engagement has the added bonus of making Sam find her more desirable once he thinks she’s off the market.

Although Kate does eventually see through both Sam’s selfishness as well as her own, we don’t see it lasting. After supposedly learning her lesson she still thinks nothing of crashing another woman’s wedding just so she can tell Nick “Guess what! I DO like you!” As we haven’t been to a nuptial ceremony in the last 20 years that lasted more than an hour we really think she could have waited till it was over. We have to confess that we were pretty pissed off when Nick didn’t just tell her to get lost. But maybe it’s just us – maybe we’re giving Nick more credit than he deserves. Maybe the hot wardrobe is enough for him.

How much crazy is one guy really willing to put up with? Not this much, in our opinion.

Annie’s life is already on a downward spiral when her bff Lillian announces her engagement and asks Annie to be her maid of honor. Annie’s bakery business has failed; she spends her days dourly working at the local jewelry store attempting to shatter the happiness of potential customers. She’s broke, her car is a few rust patches away from the junkyard, she’s sharing the rent on a dumpy house with a brother and sister that are both clearly crazy, and her ex-boyfriend is using her for wham-bam-get-the-hell-out casual sex. So when she meets Helen Harris, Lillian’s newer, richer, prettier, seemingly more together bff, it doesn’t take much to send the already shaky Annie right over the edge. She’s no match for the competitive and passive-aggressive Helen, who is clearly determined to be the “best” bridesmaid at whatever cost necessary.

It is unfortunately at this low point in her life that she meets the sensible and adorable Officer Nathan Rhodes, a state patrolman, who pulls her over one night for drunk driving. Annie is not drunk, just emotional after a meeting of the other bridesmaids, and Rhodes eventually takes pity on her and lets her go with a warning to fix her broken tail lights. Over the course of the next few weeks, as the wedding approaches and Annie sinks lower and lower into desperation, the two continue to bump into each other, eventually realizing and then consummating a mutual attraction. But as soon as their great night is over Annie immediately panics and runs away, leaving Rhodes to wonder what the hell is going on.

If she had attempted to make up with him immediately after then we could have seen some potential for these two. But she let things drag on, and at each subsequent meeting she behaves more and more badly. Her eventual attempt to apologize is – in our opinion – too little too late. After everything she’s done, leaving a home-baked carrot cake with the words “I’m Sorry” on his front porch is not going to be enough to win a guy back that is clearly normal and looking for a stable, happy relationship.

We’ve all made our mistakes and we’ve seen what happens when you show your crazy side to a guy – he runs and doesn’t look back, no matter how much he may have liked you up till then. We think this will be the case with Officer Rhodes. Truthfully we couldn’t even see him showing up at the wedding – sure it made for a nice ending, but it didn’t ring true for us. Rhodes may spend a little time lamenting that Annie didn’t turn out to be the woman he thought she was, but he won’t want to get involved with someone that clearly has a long uphill road ahead of her. He’ll flip that siren on and make for the highway as fast as possible.

Side note: Is it no longer possible to watch a movie that doesn’t try to out-gross all of the ones before it? Call us old-fashioned but seeing bodily fluids fly out of every human orifice does not good comedy make. Please – grow up Judd Apatow.

Is it fair of us to rate a couple when we know one of them won’t make it till the end? Probably not but we’re going to anyway.

Given the fact that Jenny ‘s days are numbered, we agree completely with her decision to marry Forrest. In many ways her death is the only solution to their relationship: it gives her an excuse to finally give Forrest the one thing he’s always wanted. Considering the difficulties in her life it must be a relief to finally let someone take care of her with no strings attached (Forrest is unlikely to expect anything physical from an ailing woman and anyway he’s always loved Jenny for her mind, not her body). There is no doubt that they love each other, although in different ways, and she knows he will take good care of her and provide a loving and comfortable home for their son. And he’s financially well off so no worries there.

But had Jenny lived to a ripe old age then no, we don’t think we would have seen this pea and carrot shrivel up and grow old together.

It’s true that Forrest is smarter and more intuitive in many ways than most men with twice his IQ, and he has a greater appreciation for life than most people period. And there will never be another person that loves Jenny more or that will take better care of her. But he will always be considered mentally challenged, and we can’t see Jenny being able to cope with that long term, even the new and improved cleaned-up Jenny that we see towards the end. Even if Jenny was able to give up drugs for the sake of her son, we doubt she will suddenly start dating men that are good for her. And even if she did that, we doubt she’d pick Forrest for her husband. Regardless of his mental capacity, Forrest is just never going to be enough of a bad boy for her. And we think there would always be a part of her that would be embarrassed to introduce him as her husband.

It’s hard to picture the two of them having dinner parties or attending parent-teacher conferences together. As for a physical relationship – given what we’ve seen so far we have a feeling that this is one area where Forrest would probably not be too imaginative.

Of course neither of them is terribly social so perhaps all they’d need is each other. Truthfully neither of them really look like dinner party people, and as for the school meetings – maybe Jenny will just go on her own. What the hell – maybe it could work!

Nah, who are we kidding.

Although, considering Forrest’s uncanny ability to find himself at the forefront of some of the great moments in history, she’d probably have a pretty amazing life if she did marry him.

So – we’ll have to give this couple two ratings: 0 Reels if Jenny lives; 5 if she dies.

While we love the chemistry between Book and Rachel, we think they have a better chance of finding an honest cop in Philadelphia than they do of living happily ever.

Rachel Lapp is a shy Amish woman, recently widowed and traveling with her young son Samuel. During a stopover in Philadelphia, the boy witnesses a horrific murder in the restroom of the train station. John Book is the hardened city homicide detective assigned to the case. When Samuel identifies the killer as one of Book’s colleagues on the force, Book immediately makes plans to smuggle Samuel and his mother back to the safety of their home. But after he is shot during the course of the investigation, he too is forced to take refuge in Amish country, where Rachel and her family slowly nurse him back to health. Over the course of his convalescence he begins to appreciate Rachel’s many charms: her quiet wit, inner strength and hidden sensuality. Witnessing her naked sponge bath doesn’t hurt either.

Under the watchful eyes of the Amish community Rachel is increasingly drawn to him as well, and the two finally share a moment of unforgettable and unquenchable passion that could get her permanently shunned from the village and him, well, yelled at a lot. But while their feelings for each other seem genuine, we don’t see how it could be enough to sustain a relationship between two people whose lives could not be more different. There’s only so much wood you can plane and lemonade you can drink; eventually he must return to his world and she to hers. We can’t see him living serenely off the land in Lancaster PA any more than we can see her as the wife of a city cop, polishing up his guns at night and having potlucks with the other wives in her plain black dress and bonnet. He could stay and try to start his own Amish police force, but as there’s no crime and you can’t shoot anyone even if there is he’s going to get pretty frustrated pretty soon.

Every once in a while Hollywood wraps up a movie in a way we actually agree with, and this is one of those times. The outcome of Rachel and Book’s relationship, while disappointing, is at least believable.

Guess it’s back to ADate for Rachel.