3017. Failure To Launch (2006)

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zooey Deschanel

Director: Tom Dey

Running Time: 97 mins

Failure To Launch is an American film about a man still living with his parents who falls in love with a woman hired by his mother and father to get him out of the house.

Though it struggles to find its feet early on, I actually really enjoyed Failure To Launch. A film that has a lot more to say than it first lets on, it’s a surprisingly captivating and enjoyable Hollywood comedy with great performances across the board.

At first, Failure To Launch plays it pretty safe with a predictable rom com story, following Sarah Jessica Parker as she pretends to fall for Matthew McConaughey in an effort to get him to move out of his parent’s house.

It’s the typical premise of a seemingly perfect relationship doomed to fail by deceit, and for the majority of the first half of the movie, it’s pretty much a waiting game for that inevitable twist of fate to come along.

However, while Failure To Launch could have just left things there, it spends a little more time dealing with the aftermath of that inevitable fallout. Alongside fleshing the story out a little more with a little more focus on the supporting characters in the latter stages, the film’s final act is actually pretty heartfelt and even genuinely funny.

While their chemistry is undermined by the false nature of the characters’ relationship early on, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey really gel quite nicely in the final act, as one party tries to save their relationship at the very last moment.

Couple that with an enjoyable and quirky side story about Justin Bartha and Zooey Deschanel, and Failure To Launch finishes very strongly, with laughs and pleasant romance right to the end.

It might not be the smartest film you’ll ever see (some of the jokes – especially the animal ones – are very repetitive), but in the end Failure To Launch surprisingly proves that it actually has something to say about relationships and growing up, only that it just takes a while to get there.

Perhaps if the film were more confident early on and didn’t just follow the generic rom-com formula, then it could have been even better. However, it’s still a thoroughly enjoyable watch either way, so that’s why I’m giving Failure To Launch a 7.3 overall.