Mills College WeeklyThe latest Will Smith movie, Hitch, is surprisingly amusing. Yes, okay, so I'll admit it—it’s a touching romantic comedy, despite points where the dialogue was so cheesy it made me hurt inside. The premise involves Alex Hitch (played by Will Smith) aiding the loveless and desperate men of Manhattan in winning over the objects of their desire. The “Date Doctor,” a.k.a. Hitch, teaches his clients that “any woman can be swept off her feet, you just need the right broom.”His ideology is basically that love is a formula of carefully planned encounters, the right memorized phrase or crafted situation, and any woman, any time, is putty in your hands. Being the independent and intelligent Mills woman I am, need I add that I wanted to snatch him up by the ear and give him a good talking to? Thankfully, Sara (played by Eva Mendes) is an equally jaded gossip columnist who plasters failed romance across the front page, and she gives him more than a good talking to.The two spend the rest of the film verbally sparring during each of Hitch’s carefully planned and always disastrous dates. Disaster would be putting it mildly—from almost knocking Sara unconscious and nearly drowning her, to an allergic reaction remedied by a Benadryl-induced high, and topped with truly awful singing, Hitch adds new meaning to bad date. Suddenly aware that his formula isn’t working, Hitch is left to resort to something new and uncomfortable: honesty, and let’s just say it doesn’t go too well.Albert (played by Kevin James) and Allegra (played by Amber Velletta) steal the show. Kevin James is fantastic, as a socially inept tax consultant who is desperately in love with his firm's heiress client, Allegra. The real romance happens between these two as Albert enlists the Date Doctor’s help. He does some phenomenally terrible dancing to win Allegra's heart, which will have you cringing and howling in your seat. He’s just so darn pathetic you have to love him.Albert is struggling to find out who he is, and ends up finding out that he is fine just the way he is; ironically, this is precisely the lesson Hitch needs to learn. Every man and woman is worthy of love, just the way they are without games or dissembling. That’s the message, it’s just layered under the laughter and occasional noxious cheese: love is not something you can plan, or manage. We can only hope to be lucky enough to have it kick us in the pants at least once in a lifetime.
