Rent A Life Less Ordinary (1997)

A really mixed bag for me, as well as a film which doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be - A Life Less Ordinary review by TB

After Shallow Grave & Trainspotting, expectation was fever pitch as to what the dream team of Danny Boyle, Andrew Macdonald, John Hodge and their star Ewan McGregor were going to do next. There were literally thousands of possible scenarios they could have turned their hand to. And there is a real sense of frustration for me that A Life Less Ordinary (ALLO) really genuinely tries to do something different and break the mould, but the overall experience is at best mixed. 

The good points are undoubtedly the chemistry with the cast. Ewan and Cameron Diaz, who at that time was not the Cameron Diaz that we now know, gives a very spiky and funny performance as the spoilt rich kid (Celine) of the boss who has just fired McGregor’s janitor. McGregor’ character Robert then decides to kidnap Celine in order to get his job back, but Robert is a total drip and quickly Celine sees that she can manipulate him, as well as having some fun herself. The situation is being managed in a spiritual sense by 2 angels played by Holly Hunter and Delroy Jackson, who have been told by the Angel Gabriel to make Robert and Celine fall in love, otherwise they will be banished. 

Unfortunately, there are some significant problems with this film, mainly the script and narrative choices. The film as a whole is very disjointed and I never really knew what to make of it. Whilst there are also some great individual scenes, including a brilliant karaoke scene in a bar, none of it fits together particularly well, which is quite surprising considering how the previous collaborations were not only great but also extremely tightly edited and paced. 

But credit where credit is due: this was never a boring film and one which actually tries to do something differently. It just a shame that, not from lack of trying, this film never scales the heights it so clearly is aiming for.