Pop goes the Weasel. Review on Along Came Polly Movie

The word Polly conjures up the image of an exotic parrot squawking, “Pop goes the Weasel”. Along came Polly does more than that. A 90 minute laugh riot directed by John Hamburg and released on Jan 16,2004.

Tota Maina ki kahani

Toh poorani poorani ho gayi

{The story of Tota:Parrot and Maina:Singing Bird has become old}.

The story may be old but the narrative has joie d’vivre.

Meet Jennifer Aniston as Polly Prince, a waitress by profession who has had eight failed relationships and has decided to take life easy and make no commitments. She lives in a typical Brooklyn apartment with her blind ferret.

Meet Ben Stiller as Reuben Feffer, a Risk Analyst at a Life Insurance company run by Alec Baldwin in a cameo role.

Ben starts here where he left off in “Meet the Parents”. He is the typical mama’s boy ready to marry, settle down and have kids. He ties the knot with his real estate agent Lisa Kramer (Debra Messing). The best man at the wedding is Ben’s childhood friend – Sandy Lyle (Phillip Seymour Hoffman).

The newly married couple go off for their honeymoon to St.Barths’ island in the Caribbean. While sunbathing on the beach, they meet Claude, a Frenchman and a scuba diver instructor. Claude insists on Reuben and Lisa taking some scuba diving lessons – Reuben somehow manages to escape by announcing that he is sea sick and Lisa goes off for the lessons. Reuben catches Lisa and Claude red handed making love and that too with their flippers on. He leaves them and returns home a sad man.

Remnants of his life with Lisa are well enacted with his daily ritual of removing the throw pillows from his bed. With each pillow he gets angry with Lisa and is frustrated with his life.

Sandy becomes Reuben’s philosopher and takes him to an art show where he happens to meet Polly – his schoolmate of yester-years. Reuben develops a liking for Polly but Polly is playing tough to get.

Polly lives a wild life enjoying exotic spicy foods and going off to a secret latino dancing club. Reuben, in order to impress Polly appears to enjoy these activities. The scenes depicting his encounters in Polly’s bathroom were hilarious.

On a parallel track, Sandy – a has-been actor finds himself in a stage play being put up by amateurs. To create an aura of importance around himself, he is constantly followed by a camera man who is recording his daily life like a reality show – all being paid by Sandy of course.

Reuben musters up enough courage to ask Polly to move in with him and Lisa walks back into his life. Lisa asks for his forgiveness that she made a mistake with Claude and would like to return back to Reuben as she still loves him. Reuben throws her out and being the risk analyst he is, he begins analyzing the risk profile of Polly Prince versus Lisa Kramer.

Polly is upset and is planning to leave town. Whom will Reuben finally choose – the wife who has come back and who is very orderly or the fickle minded Polly whom he loves dearly? See the movie to find out for yourself.

Performances:

# Ben Stiller was entertaining throughout. An effective body language matched with perfect timing of dialogue delivery enhanced the humor. His best scene was while playing basketball in the neighborhood with a macho guy who was all hairy, Ben, the ever clean guy he is , is forced to rub his face against a huge hairy sweaty body. His expressions are a treat to watch..

# Jennifer Aniston performed her role with ease. She was looking good, her body was great and she was not afraid to show it. She had a big tattoo on her lower back, which I must say, was a huge turn on.

# Alec Baldwin had a brief but significant role. The scene with him and Ben in the men’s room was well – “pee”utiful. It may sound gross but it was handled very well.

# Claude as the Frenchman – his French accent was well delivered and so was his philosophy about a hippopotamus. A hippo cannot put a stripe and become a zebra or put a spot and become a leopard – it will always remain a hippo – accept the fact and enjoy life. A subtle exercise in the Art of Living.

# Ben’s father was a man of few words. He spoke only once which were powerful enough to change Ben’s life.

All in an all, I would give this a 4/5 and worth a viewing. There are plenty of laughs and it is a good way to relax.

Reuben weds Lisa

Pop goes the Weasel

Happy Pollying.