Seriously. First off, it's ridiculously patriarchal. The "protagonist" is an underdefined pathetic woman with no self-confidence, and by the end of the film she has grown and developed to such a degree that...she's still all of the above, only now she can trust Jeremy to take care of her. Seriously, this character as written is pathetic. She constantly objectifies herself (even her art is images of her body), seemingly has no opinions or distinctive personality traits, and eagerly embraces relationships in which she is a supplicant for a man's affection. In fact, I think you could make the case that she's not even the real protagonist, given how little we actually learn about her. Rather, it is the Steve Martin character's impression of her, and, as the plodding "telling not showing" voiceovers make clear, it's really his story rather than hers that's the focus of the film.
OK, so it's patriarchal and sexist and treats all its female characters as different varieties of whore. (Isn't that why the blonde co-worker is in the film, to make the Claire Danes character seem like less of a tramp by comparison?) Why is she with this guy other than (a) just not to be alone and (b) because he buys her stuff? So this is what passes for love these days.
For that matter, isn't Jeremy such a ridiculously over-the-top screwup in the first act simply because otherwise the relationship between the two leads would be offensively sleazy? Seriously, I've known lots of screwups in my life, and none of them are this oblivious. This character is totally make-believe- a person this incompetent would be unable to maintain themselves. This makes it even more ludicrous when after a few months of self-help tapes he suddenly has a nice car and respectable clothes and a significantly different personality (which, as it happens, is still never shown as meshing with the "protagonist") So with these few changes he is now a decent enough man for the "protagonist", despite falling into a shallow sexual escapade with the blonde tramp.
And technically the film is pretty dreadful as well. Establishing shots tell you it's L.A., Seattle, or NYC, but there's never a sense a place. The same camera angles are repated over and over, and not to any aesthetic or symbolic effect. The musical score is effective at first, but then it's the same thing over and over no matter what's happening on screen. It's a very thin story made even thinner by the complete lack of character development. They're not archetypes, they're not stereotypes- but they're most certainly NOT fully developed individuals, either. It's painful watching Claire flailing from scene to scene without emotional continuity or even a vaguely coherent identity. Is she seriously mentally ill or does she just have a few self-confidence issues? Has she been a victim of some sort of abuse? Or is she happy and well-adjusted other than just needing to be loved? I never felt like I was watching anything other than Claire trying to act.
About the only thing this film does right is that they do a beautiful job of filming Claire's body. And that's just not enough.
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