The Accidental Husband

The Accidental Husband Review

Uma Thurman is playing a bride of a different kind in "The Accidental Husband", no longer The Bride on a mission for revenge, a la Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2, rather an ordinary everyday bride to be and a very conservative snitty one at that. It begs the question, who are you and what have you done with Uma Thurman?

Thurman stars as radio love doctor Emma Lloyd, the quintessential woman with everything. Alongside her successful show she has also published a top selling self-help book and has managed to bag herself a dapper fiancé in publisher Richard, (Colin Firth). She believes that real love is something sensible and reliable, so much so that she has based her entire career on it. But as romantic comedies are so often prone to do to their leading ladies, she finds her life turned upside down by a disgruntled dumped boyfriend who wants to teach her a lesson.

The dumped man in question is New York fireman Patrick Sullivan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a man whose unpolished, extroverted charm does little to impress the overly buttoned down Emma. Due to a carefully choreographed comedy of errors, Emma and Patrick are forced to spend time together. The highlight of which is an Indian style Bamitzvah, hosted by Patrick's adopted Asian Indian family.

Though the plot is relatively original and in places harks back to those grand old romantic comedies of the 1940's it is somewhat lacking in feeling. The only truly developed character in this story is Emma, but as she isn't particularly warm or endearing it's difficult to empathise with her predicament and even more difficult to see her being moved by a couple of men who reveal little of themselves in the story.

There is perhaps enough to enjoy for fans of romantic comedies, who are content to have vague sentimentality win out in the end - but not for this reviewer.