BECAUSE I SAID SO

Written by Hombre Divertido

Because I Said So starring Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore, and directed by Michael Lehmann, is a contrived and convoluted story full of cute competent performances. Unfortunately, said performances are not enough to make this work regardless of who says so.

It is impossible to ignore the talent of Diane Keaton even in such a poor vehicle as Because I Said So where she is an overbearing mother set on marrying off the youngest of her three daughters played enjoyably albeit one dimensional by Mandy Moore. Keaton’s “Daphne”runs a lengthy personal ad and sets out to interview candidates for her daughter.

After the standard run through of bizarre characters, she decides on “Jason,” the rich architect played by horribly miscast Tom Everett Scott, who needs to find more quirky roles that better fit his look and abilities. During the process of finding Jason, Daphne also meets “Johnny” (Gabriel Macht) the musician who is all wrong for her daughter.

So Moore's character meets and starts dating both, and the majority of you can finish the story yourself, as could the majority of people who see the film since it is quite predictable, and full of clichés that we have seen in far too many superior films.

Lauren Graham and Piper Perabo play Daphne’s other two daughters, who seem to be either dressing or undressing in a number of scenes, and do nothing more than stand around and shrug their shoulders, or smile knowingly throughout the film.

These 109 minutes of film might make four episodes of a decent situation comedy, but as a motion picture, it is too predictable, and wastes the talent of its gifted cast.

Recommendation: If not for the comedic talent of Keaton who reaches the point of virtually mugging to the camera in an effort to make poorly directed physically comedic scenes remotely humorous, and a cute performance by Moore who appears to be developing in to bankable adult actor who needs some help with script selection, this outing would be a complete waste of time. Since the actors work so hard to make a poorly directed script work, this DVD is worth a rental at your local rental shop, but not something you should pay to see at the theatre.