2 Brothers & a Bride
Two men look for a wife -- just one will do, thank you -- in this offbeat comedy. Jake (Tim Blake Nelson) and Josh (David Arquette) are two brothers who live and work in a vegetable farm somewhere in the Midwest, where they're looked after by their Ma (Lois Smith), who cooks, cleans, and keeps the guys company. When Ma dies, Jake and Josh find they're a bit lonely all by their lonesome, and more importantly, they're not much good at everyday domestic activities, so they decide to do the sensible thing -- one of them will get married so they'll have someone else to talk to and handle things in the kitchen and the laundry room. Woefully naïve, socially clumsy, and less interested in romance than day-to-day practicalities, Jake and Josh decide to head out on a matchmaking tour to St. Petersburg, Russia, where they're promised introductions to hundreds of women over the space of two weeks, in hopes that they'll find an understanding, old-fashioned wife who doesn't mind having a third wheel around at all times. A Foreign Affair was shot on location in St. Petersburg in the former Soviet Union, and in Chihuahua, Mexico, which stood in for the United States. more..
Director: Helmut Schleppi
Starring: David Arquette,Tim Blake Nelson, Emily Mortimer, Larry Pine, Allyce Beasley
I can imagine it as a sex comedy, as a romance, as a bittersweet exploration of lonely people. Schleppi has a little of all three elements at work here, but it's Tim Blake Nelson's character who keeps the plot from spinning out of control.
A Foreign Affair's flaws make it even more of an enigma, as graceless as it is endearing.
An odd concoction: an English-language movie made by Dutch filmmakers working with an American cast on location in Russia and Mexico. That strangeness, combined with sharp casting and affectionate performances, is a big part of "Affair's" charm.
Neither funny enough to be a comedy nor serious enough to pass for drama, and it ambles along aimlessly before grinding to an unconvincing halt.
There are a few witty touches (POV shots given to the urn holding the mother's ashes) but the mood swings erratically and ineffectively from deadpan drollery to heartfelt romance.
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