Love, Guaranteed Parent Guide

Susan Whitaker (Rachel Leigh Cook) is an earnest young Seattle lawyer with a crusader’s zeal to “rip off the blindfold and let justice see.” She represents clients who can’t afford to pay, with the result that her staff are updating their resumes, her office water cooler has just been repossessed, and she drives a decrepit orange Volkswagen that randomly plays 80s tunes at high volume. Then, one day, a (gasp!) paying client walks through her door.

Nick (Damon Wayans Jr.) is a lovelorn bachelor who’s handsome, articulate, and almost too good to be true. But Nick has a problem: he signed up with Love, Guaranteed, a dating app that promises that anyone who goes on 1000 dates will find love. Nick has gone on 986 dates, and true love is nowhere in sight. So he’s asking Susan to help him sue the company for false advertising and “reckless endangerment of the human heart”. Susan doesn’t want to take the case, convinced that it’s just a money-grubbing “gotcha” lawsuit, but her staff really want their water cooler back…

There are no surprises in this movie. It is, after all, a rom-com and the genre all but guarantees love and happy endings. However, “rom-com” is short for “romantic comedy” and the movie is a bit light on the comedy part of the formula with funny lines that too often fail to land. There are some amusing moments (mainly dating disasters) but the moment that made me laugh the loudest is when Susan is told that Nick has a trial date in six weeks. Be warned – if you know anything at all about how the legal system functions, this movie is going to drive you insane with its wildly improbable and often downright ridiculous plot points.

If you’re willing to overlook the plot holes, you can rest assured that there’s very little troubling content to worry about. Amazingly, this rom-com has no sexual content beyond infrequent kissing and mild innuendo. Profanity is limited to one (yup, one) anatomical term. It’s reassuring to know that Hollywood can make a clean romantic film, and kind of depressing to wonder why they don’t do it more often. The only issue in the movie is alcohol consumption, with characters drinking wine in social situations and the inebriation of a minor character being played for laughs.

Production issues are, sadly, more of a problem than the content. The script is…okay. It’s sometimes witty, sometimes heavy-handed, but the cast seem unable to forget that they are acting, which makes it difficult for their dialogue to feel lived instead of written. Heather Graham, who plays Love, Guaranteed’s owner as a thinly disguised Gwyneth Paltrow complete with lifestyle blog, is apparently unable to decide if her character is a wannabe yogi or a high school mean girl and waffles disconcertingly between the two.

Despite its flaws and made-for-tv vibe, Love, Guaranteed is a watchable bit of fluff with good messages about being honest and emotionally vulnerable. The acting might be subpar, but the story is sweet. If you love the idea of love and want to curl up on the couch with a fluffy blanket and a tub of cookie dough ice cream, this movie will guarantee you ninety minutes of warm fuzzies which are just as sugary and gooey as your snack.