OK, we know the actors get together in real life (and are still together today, 25 years later), and that, as there appears to be little difference between the actors and their onscreen characters, that probably tends to skew everyone’s opinion of Mick and Sue’s potential as a couple. But do we really think they could be The Reel Thing?

Sorry mates, but we don’t. She is a sophisticated New Yorker from a wealthy family; he is a backwoods crocodile poacher from Down Under. Honestly, other than physical chemistry and perhaps the added danger for her of dating someone so completely alien and inappropriate, what could they possibly have in common?

We could definitely see her wanting to have a fling with him while they’re both in Australia. He’s charming, he’s sexy, he’s a little rough around the edges. And he definitely ranks higher on the testosterone meter than Richard, the self-centered milksop she’s been dating. But we think once she gets back to New York and sees Mick on her home turf through her city goggles she’s going to wish she hadn’t lured him halfway around the globe. (Trust us – we’ve traveled and we know of what we speak. They never look as good once you’re back home.)

Linda and Paul may have survived the test of time, but we don’t foresee the same for Sue and Mick.

Side note: Can we just say…WORST fake rich woman wardrobe in a movie ever. The clothes look like something you’d see in a high school production. In the final scene Sue leaves her apartment dressed in a cheap looking red dress, heels, huge red sunglasses, black gloves, and – our favorite touch – a long black and white head scarf. Please! It’s 10 o’clock in the morning! This movie was made in the 80′s and they have Sue dressed like Bette Davis in the 40′s. Where is Patricia Fields when you need her?

Have you heard the one about the handyman who tricked the amnesiac socialite into believing she was his wife and the mother of his children and then somehow she actually fell in love with him? Oh, wait! That’s not a joke. It’s the couple we’re reviewing. You can see how we’d get confused.

In this extremely unlikely story about a snooty rich lady and the handyman who first cons and then falls for her, Joanna Stayton seems to have it all: money, privilege, extremely skimpy swimsuits. But there’s dissatisfaction lurking beneath the facade of her perfect life, something that becomes clear when handyman Dean Proffitt comes aboard her luxury yacht to construct a new closet. Joanna finds fault with everything around her, including Dean’s work. She refuses to pay for it and ends up throwing Dean off the boat and tossing his tools into the harbor. Oh, the irony that Joanna herself ends up going overboard later that very evening! She’s picked up by a fishing boat and brought back to town, missing her memory, but with her uppity attitude still firmly in place.

Dean sees this as an opportunity to get a little of his own back, and he claims that Joanna is his wife Annie and takes her back to his hovel to care for his brood of hell spawn. Needless to say, Joanna has never lifted a finger in her life, and there is a predictable series of misadventures as she trial-and-errors her way through the domestic arts. Soon enough, though, she’s whipped the place into shape, has become a real mother to the kids (who are now much better behaved), and she and Dean are rekindling their previously non-existent romance. The two are on the verge of making their business-owning dreams come true when Joanna’s real husband shows up. Joanna’s memory comes rushing back, and she realizes what has really been going on these past few weeks.

She leaves with her real husband, but it doesn’t take her long to realize where her heart truly belongs. Dean and the boys go after her, and one grand gesture later (involving leaping into the ocean in an evening gown), the Proffitt family is reunited.

So, will it last? It’s tricky to apply anything like logic to a premise as silly as this one, but we’ve got to go with OH HELL NO (despite the amazing chemistry between real-life partners Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell). Dean and Annie may make a nice enough couple, but Dean and Joanna? Not so much. We can’t imagine Joanna will be happy living in “Elk Snout” now that she remembers who she really is. They don’t even have a Saks! Dean would have even more trouble fitting into Joanna’s world. We can just picture him meeting her mother, wearing a grease-stained wifebeater, and opening a bottle of beer with his teeth. And let’s not forget that little matter of how he lied to, tricked and used her, hardly a strong foundation for a lasting relationship.

Love conquers all is a lovely idea, but even romantics like us can’t quite picture it bridging this gap. We give them one reel for making a ridiculous and kind of icky scenario seem almost sweet in places.

Since our job is to rate the lifelong relationship potential of Adam and Emma, we won’t waste our time telling you how unbelievably contrived we thought this movie was. The whole thing felt like a much less charming version of A Lot Like Love. But again, our job is to rate the couple, not the movie, so we won’t say anything at all.

Adam and Emma first meet as young teens at summer camp, and then have repeat collisions over the next few years. Their final encounter happens when both are well into their twenties and their careers and living in LA. After learning one day that his father has been dating his ex-girlfriend, Adam gets incredibly drunk and wakes up the next morning on Emma’s couch, with no knowledge of how he got there. Emma takes him into her room where the two share an intimate moment together and then decide, mostly at Emma’s insistence, on a “no strings attached” physical relationship. Unsurprisingly it is not long before they begin to have feelings for each other, despite the fact that they both try to deny it. Or to be more precise, Emma insists that they not have feelings for each other, and Adam feels compelled to go along with the charade.

We can’t see much potential here for these two, and not just because of their attempts to convince themselves that they don’t care for each other. Thousands before them have tried and failed to convince themselves of the same thing. We simply see no chemistry here, and no basis for a long lasting connection. Because of their feigned lack of feeling there has never been a discussion of their likes or dislikes, their values, or their future plans or dreams. So we have no grounds on which to judge their compatibility. In addition we don’t think they are ready for a real commitment. Emma may be a doctor, but she’s extremely emotionally immature. The sex seems to be good for both of them but you have yet to convince us that’s a solid foundation.

We’d love to tell you these two are The Reel Thing, but we’d just be stringing you along.

We have a confession to make. We here at The Reel Thing always do our best to watch the entire movie so we can fairly evaluate the couple’s potential. This time however we just couldn’t make it. And yet we still felt like we had seen enough to know that there was very little RT potential going on here.

Lisa is a 31-year-old professional softball player. She’s won a medal in the Olympics. She is beautiful, single, and successful and seems to have it all; until she learns that her contract is not to be renewed. She is currently dating Matty, a selfish yet good-natured professional baseball player. Neither is looking for anything serious from the other. But on their first morning-after together, when Lisa suddenly does an about-face and apologizes for getting angry with Matty for just being who he is, Matty suddenly decides that she is the one for him and invites her to move in shortly thereafter. As unbelievable as this is, what is even more unbelieveable is that she agrees.

In the midst of all of this upheaval a mutual friend sets her up with George, a mild-mannered dweeb who has just learned that he is being investigated by the SEC for fraud, and – as a result – dumped by his girlfriend as well.

We wish we could tell you more than that but there was just nothing about either of these couples or the movie itself that compelled us to stay till the end. There was no chemistry, no connection, no meeting of any minds. We can’t even hazard a guess as to which one Lisa picks at the end but we hope it’s neither as neither one feels like a match for her. Having lost the one thing that really mattered to her – softball – Lisa is feeling adrift and therefore vulnerable to whatever form of liferaft comes along. George is in pretty much the same situation, and Matty is just looking for anything that is as fun and uncomplicated as possible. We didn’t seen any real basis for commitment between any of these perfectly likeable people beyond a little half-hearted affection. Of course there’s always the chance that we missed some life-changing event at the end that would have changed our minds. We doubt it though.

How do you know when it’s time to leave? You just do.

The Movie: The Wedding Date

Reel Thing Rating: 1 out of 5 Reels
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We are pretty sure we are 2 of the 10 people that saw this movie, and 2 of the 3 that will actually admit to it. Despite it’s utter inanity and unbelievably unbelievable plot, there is something that compels us to watch it whenever it’s on cable. There are clearly some serious character flaws at work here. But that’s another matter.

Kat Ellis has to fly home to England for the wedding of her younger half-sister Amy. Kat is attractive and reasonably successful. But as she is also over thirty, single, extremely neurotic, and above all, anxious to make her ex-fiance Jeffrey (who will be the best man) jealous, she extracts $6000 from her 401K to pay Nick Mercer, a high-end male escort, to accompany her on the trip and pose as her boyfriend. Wow, seems like a match made in heaven, doesn’t it?

Nick turns out to be also attractive, and extremely successful. On top of that he is sexy, elegant, a great dresser, a great listener, and extremely self-confident and sure of himself. Much more so than Kat in fact. He’s also seems to be incredibly decent and honorable. In short, he is the quintessential perfect man (ie, a figment). Not only does he win her over but her entire family as well.

That she falls for him is not the part that actually amazes us; it’s that he falls for her. For those of you that follow this site you probably know by now that we are not big fans of needy, overly emotional women. If Nick is all he’s supposed to be we can understand someone as insecure as Kat falling for the package. What we can’t understand is what Nick, who presumably meets women all the time, sees in her. We think she definitely has the drama queen gene and she seems determined to hang onto her past misery for the sheer “poor pitiful me” theatrics of it. During their climactic fight Nick says to her “Maybe now you’ll be able to hold on to this long enough to ruin your next relationship” and he’s right. Kat is addicted to unhappy endings.

So what brings him back? We really can’t say. Yes there is some physical chemistry there, and they do spar well, but well enough for a lifetime? And even if Nick is harboring a secret damsel-in-distress fetish, how many times will he have to pick her up and dust her off before it starts to get old?

And, oh yes, we might as well address that other issue – he’s a professional escort that’s slept with possibly hundreds of women. Are we to believe that is really never going to intrude on their bliss? And what about her friends and family? Kat passed Nick off as a therapist at the wedding, but how long can that story hold up if they are going to spend their lives together? At some point people are going to start wondering why Nick doesn’t ever go to the office. Or have an office. Or a diploma.

Sorry, not seeing it happening. But we’ll still watch it the next time it’s on.

The Movie: Working Girl

Reel Thing Rating: 1 out of 5 Reels
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We have to confess – we love this movie.  It’s one of our favorites, and the only one in which Melanie Griffith is tolerable.  There are so many great performances, in particular from Sigourney Weaver as Katherine Parker, who steals the show.

But cute as they are onscreen we have to question the chances of the relationship between Tess and Jack.  It’s true – Tess cleans up nice.  Jack is clearly drawn to each other and there is some great sexual chemistry there. And Jack is definitely a big step up, not just financially and socially but personally and emotionally, from her boyfriend Nick. But the fact is that few people truly leave their roots behind and we find it hard to picture Jack hanging with the in-laws on Staten Island every Thanksgiving.  The more likely story would be that Jack does Tess on the down low for a year and then settles down for a life of moneyed misery with Katherine.

The Movie: Knocked Up

Reel Thing Rating: 1 out of 5 Reels
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We admit it – we liked this movie much more than we thought we would. It was downright hilarious a lot of the time and almost believable some of the time. But do we really buy Ben and Alison as a couple?

Call us superficial, but…

We know that since the beginning of time there have been relationships between beautiful women and “interesting” men. Billy and Christy, Susan and Dudley, and we’re still trying to figure out Salman and Padma. So we can’t say it would never happen. But usually those men have one thing in common – money, and lots of it. This guy is just a lazy slacker apparently going nowhere, marrying a beautiful on-air E personality? We’re having a tough time with that one. He’s funny, but he’s not that funny.

We agree, there was something there, much more than we expected from the previews, which had us thinking “No freaking way!” But we just don’t see it as a long term romance. We took Alison’s sister’s marriage as a kind of cautionary tale about what happens a few years into people “doing the right thing” when a baby comes along unexpectedly, and we see the same kind of burnout happening with Ben and Alison. How long is Ben going to want to buckle down and be a cubicle monkey? How is he going to fit into Alison’s world of glamour and ambition? She’ll get tired of his immaturity and lack of motivation and he’ll find himself pining for that bong he threw out. Eventually he’ll embarrass her one time too many at a Hollywood party and that will be the end.

They’ll divorce but stay friends, not just for the child’s sake, but because there’s honest affection there. He’ll be that great fun dad that every kid loves and every mother rolls her eyes at before she heads out to the country club with husband #2. She’ll probably miss him occasionally but ultimately feel that she is better off without him.

The Movie: The Thomas Crown Affair

Reel Thing Rating: 1 out of 5 Reels
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K’s friend Lori loves this movie.  We must confess we do not.  Yes, Pierce Brosnan plays a delightful charmer and Rene Russo looks, much as we hate the expression “for her age,” pretty freaking amazing.  He’s handsome, debonair, and exceedingly wealthy – what’s not to like there? She’s stunning, sexy, and successful. But is it wrong of us to expect a woman “of her age” to have a little more self-respect?  The little kitten voice, the caring too much where he is, and worst of all, the constant weeping and sulking in dark glasses when she thinks she’s been blown off just make us want to shout “Grow a pair!” at the screen.  If she can be the woman she’s meant to be, then we’ll give them our blessing.  Otherwise we think it will be a quick romance and then he’ll be off to fresher pastures.

The Movie: The Cutting Edge

Reel Thing Rating: 1 out of 5 Reels
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It’s The Odd Couple meets Ice Capades in this tale of a former hockey player turned figure skater and the strong-willed prima donna he pairs up with to try to make some Olympic magic. Instant hate turned to attraction turned to a more tender connection makes a good story, but what about a relationship? Do these two have a future once they climb down from the gold-medal podium?

We can see the relationship between Kate and Doug going one of two ways:

The Path To Destruction

They decide to become partners on and off the ice, taking a detour to the altar on the way to their next World Championships. This is bound to be nothing but disastrous for so many, many reasons.

It’s the rare couple that can spend all their time together, at work and at home, without being in some pretty serious danger of committing homicide, and these are not those people. Both Kate and Doug have big, explosive personalities, and some fairly serious anger management issues. Even though they develop a sense of rapport along the way, they still have a tendency to rub each other the wrong way.

Not to mention that they come from completely different worlds. We find it hard to picture Kate going for visits to Doug’s brother’s bar, and how comfortable is Doug ever going to feel in Kate’s hoity-toity world where everyone will always be looking down on him? We give it six months before one of them is jetting off to the Caribbean for a quickie divorce.

If the marriage actually lasts, well, we think that might be even worse. Kate’s an ice princess used to getting her way and Doug doesn’t take shit from anyone. He’s a dog with the ladies, and she’s not much on sharing. We imagine many nights of Doug stumbling home, smelling like another woman, confronted by a bitter, boozy Kate.

Doug: I wasn’t doing anything.

Kate: Toe pick!

Doug: Come on. I have no idea whose thong that is. Why do you always have to jump to conclusions?

Kate: Toe pick!

Doug: Okay, fine. I admit it! But if you weren’t such a shrew, I wouldn’t have to sleep with other women.

Kate: TOE PICK!!!!

Our prediction: These two do not medal in matrimony.

The Path To Becoming Access Hollywood’s Figure Skating Analysts

While we think Kate and Doug would be disastrous spouses or lovers, we also think they make a hell of a figure skating team. The best thing that could happen would be if the sexual attraction plays itself out in a few months, mellowing into the kind of friendship that’s a boon to their on-ice partnership.

We like to imagine them doing a successful stint with Stars on Ice (in a different, better world where Johnny Weir is the tour’s biggest asset), then becoming a coaching team who mold a series of Olympic contenders through a combination of merciless training and sarcastic banter, and finally when they’re ready to take it easy, they settle in as figure skating’s go-to team of analysts, peppering observations about shaky triple axels with eyerolls at each other’s bad puns and overblown sports clichés.

Our prediction: If they stick to being business partners and teammates, they’ll always be champions together!