Just Go With It Review: A Little Romance and a Lot of Laughs

Adam Sandler’s newest film Just Go With It opened this weekend and, I have to say, I was surprised at how much the movie entertained me. But also not surprised. Does that make sense? Ok, well I’ve been a huge fan of Sandler and his outfit of Happy Madison friends for some time now, but lately the comedic quality has been a little, I’ll say “lacking”, despite having an awesome cast of talented comedians. With the release of Funny People (which sadly was just the opposite) and more recently Grown Ups, which I won’t even get into, I was worried this was the end of the line for classic Sandler films.

The gist of the movie is that Adam Sandler’s character, Danny, is a surgeon who develops a relationship complex after a failed marriage to a cheating wife. He comes to the realization (after an accidental test-run) that wearing his old wedding ring to in public makes him appear harmless but, at the same time, attracts the attention of beautiful women around him. It’s the perfect plan for him- he gets the girl but uses the marriage excuse as a way to not bind himself to anyone, therefore avoiding another potential relationship let down. All until the blonde bombshell Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) swaggers into his life that is and makes Danny want to give up the married-man charade.

Unfortunately for Danny, Palmer meets him at a moment when he’s forgotten to wear his wedding band but she does eventually find it, and then things get tricky. From here out, the entirety of the film is spent by Danny trying to convince Palmer he isn’t married. Rather than sit down and have an adult conversation (because where’s the fun in that), he thought it would be easier to start a few little lies which wind up expanding into an entire second life. This is both frustrating and entertaining for the audience- at least for me it was.

What really held the movie together was the hilarious dialogue between Sandler and his main co-star Jennifer Aniston, who plays Catherine, Danny’s office assistant. Apparently, these two have known each other off-camera for upwards of twenty years now and the level of comfort between the two really showed on screen- it just flowed so well! Now, I know Aniston gets a lot of crap nowadays and I’m not entirely sure why. Did everyone forget about Office Space? Girlfriend knows her stuff.

I might go as far as to say that Jennifer Aniston played my favorite character IF it weren’t for the fact that I can’t deny that I am a little biased toward anything having to do with Nick Swardson. Nick played Danny’s cousin Eddie in the movie and it was pretty cool to see him play a somewhat main supporting role for a change instead of just a secondary character that’s only remembered for his sweet race car bed. I have to mention that there were a few notable cameos, including a big old-school SNL favorite Kevin Nealon and The Hills veteran Heidi Montag, but Nicole Kidman was one of the funniest. She plays Catherine’s all-time nemesis/frenemy Devlin Adams who is just SO out of her mind that you think this is out of Kidman’s typical realm of acting but, at the same time, it’s really hilarious to watch!

As the story progresses, it takes the typical route you expect it to, leaving it very predictable. As Danny and Catherine get to know each other on deeper levels, they of course begin to fall in actual love with each other and Danny soon realizes that the young, gorgeous Palmer may not be his one and only after all. Even though this story has been told countless times in the movie world, you have to look at it for what it’s really supposed to be about- good old fashioned Sandler comedy. I wasn’t sure I’d be saying this prior to me going into the theater, but see this one. It’s a little romance and a lot of laughs so just go with it. I bet you were waiting for me to slip that one in there, huh? Well, there you go.

Images courtesy of Sony Pictures