Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)

Starring Kate Bosworth, Topher Grace, Josh Duhamel, Sean Hayes, Nathan Lane.
Directed by Robert Luketic.
Written by Victor Levin.
Produced by Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher.
Distributed by DreamWorks Pictures.
95 minutes.

LVJeff's Rating: 7/10

Win a Date Plays it Straight

Win a Date with Ted Hamilton! seems to have missed an opportunity here. Given its premise -- a small-town girl wins a night out with a hot young movie star -- this comedy could have easily found a way to lampoon the images sold by Hollywood. In fact, that's what it seems set to do in its opening sequence, where three friends sit in a theater watching the titular actor's latest release. One of them is obviously keen to Tinseltown's cliche machine, making a joking comment about the inevitability of the leading man getting together with the leading lady.

The kidder is Pete (Topher Grace), a young matter-of-fact man who's secretly in love with one of the other two friends, Rosalee (Kate Bosworth). She, however, is smitten by Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel) and is willing to believe his heroic presence on the screen reflects his real-life persona. Naturally, that's not the case, and Pete is quick to say so. Before you can say "Duckie," Pete is stuck in a love triangle within the very kind of movie he'd denounce as manufactured cheese. And irony starts taking off his warm-ups.

So perhaps the true surprise is how Win a Date plays it straight. It doesn't comment on the silly gloss Hollywood sells; instead, it's a guileless romance, itself sold with a minimal amount of gloss. The movie is actually so uninterested in its own premise that it essentially dispenses with it as quickly as it can -- it takes very little time to play out winning the contest and going on the date. The movie only really begins when Tad, on a soul-searching mission, follows Rosalee to her hometown and shows up before her.

What follows is an unassuming romantic comedy that appears a bit too happy to be lightweight. It gets quite a bit of mileage out of the running gag of the townspeople gawking at the presence of the big celebrity (before this, it gets its dopey kicks by presenting us with a corny Californians-are-so-weird montage). Pop music punctuates all of the emotional cues. Throwaway joke characters played by Nathan Lane and Sean Hayes just pop in and out whenever the story can use a bigger shot of levity. None of this is anything anyone will remember the morning after a viewing.

However, Win a Date does have certain elements that stand out. Its most reassuring feature is how it portrays its three main characters. In a film where the lessons to be learned are imminent, the participants of the love triangle go against the grain of character convention. Tad is not an out-and-out jerk, Pete is not always right about what will happen or what he should do, and Rosalee actually has a brain in her head, along with some self-respect. All three are played endearingly by hopeful up-and-comers, which is a boost to their believability (although, truthfully, Bosworth never looks less than movie-star beautiful). A bigger boost comes from how they react to their situations with honesty -- rarely are they forced to act out of character just to drive the plot, nor to do something stupid just because it would be funny to laugh at them.

Indeed, if Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! has a singular strong selling-point, it's this: the movie is sincere -- not mean, not insulting, but sweet and thoughtful. At first, I thought it was lacking irony -- that perhaps it could have used it to make it more interesting. What I discovered was that it never had any interest in irony in the first place -- and, I decided, rightfully so.

©Jeffrey Chen, Jan. 20, 2004

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