Blended is a romantic comedy which reunites Hollywood favourites Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore in a story about family, grief and (of course) true love. Whilst I can’t say this is in any way a film which will change your life or shock you with the intricate twists and turns of its plot, for all its cliché and cheesy aspects, this is quite simply a nice film.
The beginning is not entirely promising. Barrymore and Sandler (a divorcee and widower respectively) meet for a blind date in Hooters which inevitably goes wrong. I understand the efforts of the filmmakers to instantly break the ice by showing just how disastrous and awkward blind dates can be in the movie world but there is no way that doing something as simple as eating a spicy shrimp could end in such shenanigans as we see in the opening of this film!
Yet somehow, as we move to South Africa, the mood shifts and we are greeted by a surprisingly emotional story of the difficulties of heart break and the search for true love (which is, of course, the reason we are watching this film in the first place!). From awkward dinners with overly loved-up fiancés to riding ostriches in the sun, I know it’s so farfetched but it remains, none the less, good fun.
Barrymore and Sandler do have great onscreen chemistry (which we’ve seen in films such as 50 First Dates) and it is undeniable that you believe first in their repulsion of and then their attraction to each other (they are, after all, very good at what they do).
It’s true, the film is over the top, predictable and filled with the kind of mishaps and humour we have seen so many times before. But personally I think if you are looking for a film you can simply enjoy and smile about, to help shake the stress of exams, you could do a lot worse than going to see Blended.
Blended (2014), directed by Frank Coraci, is released in the UK by Warner Bros. Pictures, Certificate 12A.
