Given the lukewarm reviews this movie was getting and the fact that I was already surprised by how good another family dramedy was recently (The Family Stone), I was happily surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. Frankly, I enjoyed how underplayed the movie is. It’s downright casual through much of it. There’s a lack of sentiment in much of the material that I found very refreshing. Add to that some very practical dialog that kind of surprised me as well. A revelation like “I could say that I can’t live without you, but I could. I just don’t want to” is something not found in most films like this. Nothing in it is particularly straight forward or simple, either. Plus, they build up chemistry on all the situations, so it could be comfortable for them to resolve the relationships in the film almost any way they wanted, and it would probably work just as well. Jennifer Aniston is perfectly charming and comfortable in her role. Kevin Costner is a good pick for his role, and he manages to make it work well. Heck, even Shirley MacLaine is a natural fit for her character. Mark Ruffalo is quickly getting typecast as the male romantic comedy lead, but with good reason. He’s good at it. The blur between reality and fiction, involving all the fun concepts in the history of The Graduate works well, and plays well as the initial gimmick for the plot. If there were one criticism I’d make, it’s that somebody other than Marc Shaiman to do the score, because it comes through as a bit too obvious and traditionally romantic comedy. Somebody with a more twisted sense of fun and style like Mychael Danna, Rolfe Kent or Thomas Newman could have done a better job. All things being equal, I really enjoyed this movie. Far better than I had anticipated.