How Do You Know

Review

he stars in How Do You Know look as if they’ve been sucked into digital rom-com space, where writer-director James L. Brooks explains that the rules are different in this world and everyone must pull as many faces as possible if he or she wants to get to a higher plane of existence. Reese Witherspoon works her big jaw and pops her eyes and always seems on the verge of saying �Shoot!� or �Dagnabbit!� She’s going for Mary Tyler Moore but comes off like a blonde, overcaffeinated morning-talk-show hostess. Paul Rudd plays the adorable young corporate executive unjustly accused of fraud who tries to win Reese by being moony and clutchy and parading his insecurities�normally a good way to get slapped with a restraining order but here meant to seem irresistible. As the sweet but slow-witted pro-baseball horndog who turns possessive whenever Reese shows signs of independence, Owen Wilson takes something off his delivery, and his wobbly curve balls catch the side of the plate: Playing the dumb guy, he’s the only one who shows any intelligence.

The sad part is that How Do You Know is nowhere near as dumb as it looks. A couple of comic set pieces are inspired�or would be, if Brooks’s timing weren’t off. Accustomed to a slower brand of dramaturgy, he can’t master the glib modern rom-com chick-flick shorthand, so every scene takes twice as long to get half as far as we expect. And those scenes are painful. As Rudd’s rich dad, Jack Nicholson�who won Oscars in two of Brooks’s other films�flails his arms and lurches around and runs out of breath and has never looked less like a movie star. Seeing Nicholson purged of charisma, you know there’s a rupture in the space-time continuum. — David Edelstein