Failure to Launch

Some guys introduce their girlfriends to their parents when they want to get serious about a relationship. But not Tripp, the athletic ladies' man played by Matthew McConaughey in Failure to Launch. When he thinks a girlfriend is getting too serious, he takes her back to his place—where she soon discovers that he still lives with his parents, and that his father is prone to wandering into his bedroom even when Tripp is, um, entertaining a lady. Inevitably, the girlfriend is shocked, and angry, and leaves—and Tripp is free to play the field once again, while his mother keeps looking after his laundry, his room, and his food.

Matthew McConaughey stars as Tripp, a 35-year-old slacker who's still living with his parents

The experts who study these things say that as many as two out of five people in their 20s and early 30s are "adultescents," living like teenagers in their parents' homes while enjoying lives of relative luxury—driving nice cars, going on vacations and doing various other things that are possible when you've got a grown-up income but you don't have to worry about certain basic living expenses. The subject is certainly ripe for a movie, even a romantic comedy, but Failure to Launch drops the ball almost immediately, by relying on the sorts of gags and tricks that never occur anywhere but on the big screen.

Take, for example, Tripp's romantic foil, a woman named Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker) who asks him out on a date—or asks him to ask her out, or something like that—when they meet in a furniture store. Unbeknownst to Tripp, Paula is a professional "interventionist" who is hired by parents to get cozy with their grown-up sons and thereby draw them out of the nest; she even has a list of "steps" to go through, such as "emotional crisis day," that are designed to form emotional attachments so strong that the men she dates will want to move out of their parents' houses. But Tripp is so insistent on staying unattached that you just know he's going to try to shake Paula off once she seems to be getting serious with him. So he's plotting against her, and she's plotting against him, and they both believe their plans are foolproof—but because this is a romantic comedy, you expect things to turn out in ways that they never expected. It's like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days in reverse.

Tripp's parents set him up with Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), the girl of his dreams

Never mind the sheer improbability of people like Paula actually having jobs like hers; the arrangement between her and her clients seems pretty dysfunctional. Paula insists she does not sleep with her clients—or, rather, with her clients' children—and presumably she dumps the men she dates once they have moved out and her mission is accomplished. But would parents really be so desperate to get rid of their children that they would deliberately plot to break their hearts, instead of, say, telling them to leave and changing the locks? And what sort of private or social life could a person like Paula possibly expect to have? The women Tripp dates may be put off by the fact that he lives with his parents, but what man would want to date a woman who deliberately dates and dumps other men for a living?

There is a hint of an answer to that last question: Paula lives with a woman named Kit, the latest in a series of jaded, sarcastic sidekicks played by Zooey Deschanel, and while it's always amusing to see her in these sorts of roles, she's almost on autopilot here. Anyway, it's not too hard to figure out that Paula's life is so empty, and her treatment of men so cold and calculating, that she probably finds the presence of her cynical roommate comforting or reassuring. But their living arrangement raises at least one more question that the film never answers: Do they own or rent? And how do they afford the place? In a movie that is all about homes and self-sufficiency, this kind of plot hole looms larger than usual—especially when one of the women announces that she's going to move out.

Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw play Tripp's parents, who are more than ready for an empty nest

The film is directed by Tom Dey (whose two previous films were the buddy flicks Shanghai Noon and Showtime) from a script by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, both of whom have worked exclusively in television until now—and there is a certain sitcom superficiality to the humor, especially where sex and the discussion thereof is concerned. The film also indulges in a peculiar, and very broadly played, running gag in which Tripp and at least one other person are attacked by biting animals—everything from chipmunks to dolphins. Apparently, as one of Tripp's friends interprets these incidents, it is so unnatural for Tripp to still be living at home, that Nature itself is taking action against him—an idea so wacky that you may wish the film had ditched it altogether, or incorporated even more of that sort of absurdism, instead of settling back into the standard romantic-comedy clichés.

But somehow the movie isn't a complete write-off. For one thing, it does benefit from the easygoing charisma of its cast. If you like spending time with the likes of McConaughey, Parker and Deschanel—or with Terry Bradshaw and Kathy Bates, who play Tripp's parents—then this may be a tolerable date movie. But if you don't, then the multiple contrivances and the inevitable grinding of the storytelling gears, especially in the final half-hour, will have you itching to go home—whether you happen to live with your parents or not.