All About Steve parents guide

All About Steve Parent Guide

Trying to salvage a suitable ending with a sentimental platitude or two, "All About Steve" is a loquacious, wordy, garrulous script that talks fast in a desperate attempt to appear comical.

Overall D+

Mary Horowitz (Sandra Bullock) may be a clever crossword puzzle creator, but she has no skill with men. Then she goes on a blind date with Steve (Bradley Cooper). Mary is so smitten by the good-looking cameraman that she doesn't realize he has no interest in her. And when she starts following him everywhere, Steve becomes convinced she's a stalker.

Release date September 4, 2009

Violence B
Sexual Content C
Profanity D
Substance Use A-

Why is All About Steve rated PG-13? The MPAA rated All About Steve PG-13 for sexual content including innuendos.

Run Time: 94 minutes

Official Movie Site

Parent Movie Review

Desperate times may call for desperate measures but humor should never feel as desperate as it does in All About Steve. Granted Mary Horowitz (Sandra Bullock), an overly verbose crossword creator for the Sacramento Herald, is a little eager to find the perfect guy. But her penchant for drowning people with a verbal downpour every time she is around them makes it difficult to acquire any long-term friends, let alone someone to marry.

So she is understandably a little nervous about the blind date her dad (Howard Hesseman) and mom (Beth Grant) arrange for her and pleasantly surprised when she gets a glimpse of Steve (Bradley Cooper). She is so impressed with the television news cameraman that she hurries back upstairs to change into something a little more slinky and revealing. And before the couple has even pulled away from the curb of her parents’ home where she lives, Mary is stripping off her skimpy attire and disrobing Steve in hopes of getting some sexual gratification.

Yet throwing herself on her unsuspecting date isn’t the only socially awkward attribute this girl has. For a woman who makes her living with words and who is constantly quoting quips, she clearly doesn’t understand the phrase "Talk is cheap." Consequently, when Steve says he’d like to have her on the road with him, she totally misses the underlying message and mistakenly believes him. After losing her job, she sees no reason to stay in town and heads off to catch up with him and the rest of his news crew after they leave town.

In the truest sense of the word, Mary probably isn’t stalking, but it comes awfully close to it. Egged on by the on air personality, Hugh Hartman (Thomas Haden Church), who works with Steve, this ditzy puzzle maker follows the communication’s van from one disaster to another while trying anxiously to win Steve’s heart.

Unfortunately the screenplay seems as frantic to get a laugh as the cruciverbalist is to find love. Riddled with plot holes as big as a mineshaft, this flawed road trip movie parades out a huge cast of incompetent characters including emergency personnel who stand around helplessly during a crisis, a stern school teacher who barely engages her students and a long haul truck driver who Mary repeatedly begs not to take advantage of her. The result is an overabundance of crude sexual innuendo, profanities and a pitiful attempt to establish any sense of compassion for the on-screen personalities or their circumstances.

Trying to salvage a suitable ending with a sentimental platitude or two, All About Steve is a loquacious, wordy, garrulous script that talks fast in a desperate attempt to appear comical, but is so unfunny it will likely leave viewers feeling speechless.

Starring Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, Thomas Haden Church, Phil Traill. Running time: 94 minutes. Theatrical release September 4, 2009. Updated

All About Steve
Rating & Content Info

Why is All About Steve rated PG-13? All About Steve is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for sexual content including innuendos.

Mary is so frantic to find a man that she throws herself on Steve moments after they meet, stripping off her clothes and placing Steve’s hands on her chest. Their interlude includes crude sexual banter, passionate kissing and scenes of Mary aggressively attacking her date. Men’s feet are seen lined up in a bathroom where one man plays with another’s foot. Women’s partially exposed chests are frequently focused on. A woman runs in front of a moving truck. A character repeatedly asks a man not to rape and murder her. The script contains discussions about a 3-legged baby and extra sexual body parts. A woman rubs herself against a man. A couple has a conversation about a Christian deity. A married man talks about looking at other women. Crude comments are made about homosexuals, fornication, porn stars and sexual body parts. A man is punched in the face. Another man falls from scaffolding. Characters are caught in severe storms. Several characters, including a group of deaf children, fall or jump down an abandoned mine shaft. Profanities, crude sexual terms, a strong sexual expletive and hand gesture, and terms of Deity are used often in the script.

Page last updated

All About Steve Parents' Guide

How are media personalities portrayed in this film? What is Hugh’s justification for his comments to Mary? How do the competing stations interact with one another?

Do the protestors in this film appear to base their opposition on any intelligent arguments or are they just looking for any cause to contend?

What actions or activities do you consider to be “normal” behavior?

Home Video

The most recent home video release of All About Steve movie is December 22, 2009. Here are some details…

Release Date: 22 December 2009

All About Steve on Blu-ray offers the following bonus materials:

-Commentary by Kim Barker (writer), Sandra Bullock, Thomas Haden Church, Bradley Cooper, Ken Jeong and Phil Traill (director).

- Featurettes: All About All About Steve and Take A Stab At Vocab!

- Gag Reel

- Crew Snapshots To Mary’s Rap

- Fox Movie Channel Presents Casting Session

- Digital Copy of All About Steve

All About Steve on DVD comes with:

-Commentary by Kim Barker (writer), Sandra Bullock, Thomas Haden Church, Bradley Cooper, Ken Jeong and Phil Traill (director).

- Featurette: All About All About Steve

- Nine Deleted Scenes

- Gag Reel (with optional commentary)

- Crew Snapshots To Mary’s Rap

Related home video titles:

In While You Were Sleeping, Sandra Bullock stars as a tollbooth operator who has a secret crush on one of the daily commuters that passes through her turnstile. In a more serious role, she also plays a woman who falls in love with a man from another time dimension in The Lake House. There is more to crossword puzzles than may meet the eye. The documentary Wordplay looks at the more competitive side of this pastime.