The Perfect Man

The Perfect Man (Director: Mark Rosman)

Rosman directed last year's Cinderella Story, starring this movie's teen queen Hilary Duff. I guess Rosman is the trusted godfather of the Duff family, because he directed a "Lizzie Maguire" episode, too.

This movie reminds me of that 1992 episode of "The Simpsons" where Bart responds to his teacher's personal ad, to get back at her, but finds his prank has hurt her even more than he could imagine, so he continues the charade to cheer her up--but the plan has an obvious backfire: the person he has dreamed up doesn't exist.

The Perfect Man is about teenager Holly Hamilton (Duff) and mom Jean (Heather Locklear), and oh yeah, Holly's spell-happy sister Zoe (Aria Wallace). Seems as though Holly's mom gets dumped by a lot of frickin' idiots--I mean, have you ever seen Heather Locklear? Holy crap! You must be the dumbest man in the world, tied with lots of other guys, apparently (Tommy Lee, for instance). Anyway, mom decides to uproot and move every time some ass dumps her, causing familial strain with Holly, who can't seem to make any friends. Teardrop. Of course, a move to New York City may do wonders. Holly decides to cheer mom up by taking the advice of a new friend's uncle, Ben (Chris Noth), and sending her flowers and sending love letters, eventually creating a full-fledged lie that her oft-broken-hearted mom can pin her hopes on and have no possible chance of ever having them fulfilled. Way to go, Hilary Duff! First Lindsay Lohan, and now this!

Yeah, and that's what makes this movie suck. The lie is such an idiotic thing. Holly wants her mom to be happy and believe in it, but what happens when she wants to meet him? The lie gets so bad that it eventually leads to ridiculous (almost XXX: State of the Union ridiculous...there, I've said it), supposedly high-farcical situations mostly involving poor Ben, who certainly didn't need any of this. Meanwhile, Duff has a cutie artist friend Adam (Ben Feldman) who develops feelings for her--and although the movie wants us to believe this is supposed to be mutual, I never got the feeling. Plus, why are we making teenage romances out to be some happily ever after nonsense anyway?

There's a few other people in this, notably Mike O' Malley (he was in ESPN commercials as "The Rick"), who plays a would-be suitor to Jean. He steals the movie--and the movie makes him linger around long enough to where we think he might have a chance. Also, stand-up comic Caroline Rhea is in here as filler, along with a lot of other people who don't add anything to the story.

At first, I was merely going to dismiss this film as inessential. Then, it turned ugly. Hey, I realize that the movie isn't meant for 28-year-old white guys, but come on, now--girls in their teens have to be smarter than this, right? They can't accept this garbage as entertainment, right? Oh, I give up.