Suddenly 30

Review by Clint Morris

There's something so 80's about Jennifer Garner's new film.

Is it the Belinda Carisle track that opens the movie? The Rick Springfield mention?

The fact that the movie is an immodest rip-off of the 1987 Penny Marshall classic Big, in which a 13 year old is transformed into a grown-up Tom Hanks overnight? Or merely the fact that it's relying on the light and fluffy to get folks through?

Whatever the case, Jennifer Garner's picked a pretty safe film to use as her major big screen debut.

A total 180 from her role as agent Sidney Bristow on TV's Alias, Suddenly 30 casts the pretty (but muscular?) 'It' girl as a young hotshot business editor, who a day before was your typical dorky 13 year old schoolgirl.

Jenna Rink is astonished that her dream to be older has come true - she has the job, she has the money, she has the body - but when she realises that it's come with a price - losing her childhood friend to a gang of girly bitches, who, at one time, were her enemies - she sets out to make things right.

Suddenly 30 is no more, no less than the female equivalent of Big. Yet, it doesn't seem to aspire to be anymore. Thankfully, Garner injects something fresh into it anyway - resulting in a magnetic, bubbly performance that almost saves the movie from dipping into merely 'okay' terrain.

Shining in near every scene, Garner is the drawcard to the film, bringing welcomed goofiness to the part (watch her re-enact the dance routine for Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' at a party) and drowning the screen with the embodiment of someone many young women will easily relate to.

Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa's script might have been written at the dinner table in an hour, but it still possesses some nice touches.

They've nailed the 80's on the head - the hairstyles, the music (though they do use a lot of songs that came out at different times in the 80's), the trends - and written reasonably fleshy parts for the supporting players, particularly Mark Ruffalo, who's a nice addition to the film as the aforesaid childhood friend left behind.

It will be interesting to see whether the film ages as quickly as its lead character does in the film, and though Suddenly 30 probably won't appeal to anyone other than Jennifer Garner fans, right now that's about 80 per cent of the population so no sweat there.

3 out of 5

Suddenly 30
Australian release: Thursday September 2nd
Cast: Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Shana Dowdeswell, Jack Salvatore Jr., Kathy Baker.
Director: Gary Winick.
Website: Click here.

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