Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Review by Anthony Morris

Did You Hear About the Morgans? is a high concept film that can't be bothered setting up the concept.

On the surface it is painfully obvious: take ultra-urban actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant, dump them in the middle of middle America and watch the laughs flow.

But instead of bothering to actual set up just how urban they are, we get a whole lot of scenes explaining how Grant (a Lawyer) and Parker (a real estate maven) used to be married, but now that they're separated, Grant wants her back.

She, however, doesn’t want to go back but clearly she still feels something for him - and then they witness a murder and get shipped off by witness protection to Ray, Wyoming, where people wear cowboy hats, love guns, and aren't fazed by bears.

The fish-out-of-water angle gets an occasional airing (she won't eat meat but turns out to be good at shooting; he's scared of bears but can ride a horse), but the film's heart's not in it.

Oddly, for a film this sloppy (count how many times a Grant line has clearly been dubbed in afterwards), by keeping the focus on the relationship between the two leads – it's no spoiler to let you know that they start to drift back together-  the film plays to pretty much its only strength: Parker and Grant.

If nothing else, they are seasoned romantic comedy professionals and they manage to inject some wit and warmth into a film that otherwise really doesn’t work.

Sure, at best this will leave you wishing desperately that the duo would get themselves into a film worthy of their talents, but considering how limp everything else about this film happens to be - seriously, at one stage a bad guy is dispatched by a thrown horse shoe - it could have ended up a whole lot worse.

1 out of 5

Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Australian release: 26th December, 2009
Official Site: Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Cast: Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sam Elliott, Mary Steenburgen, Elisabeth Moss
Director: Marc Lawrence