All About Steve Review

First things first, if a movie can make me cry then I know that I have enjoyed it.  I went to see All About Steve last month with Memaw and Carla for our monthly Girls Night Out.  We wanted to see it because it was being promoted as a comedy romance.  Well, it lived up to the comedy genre in all its glory but may have fell short of the romance unless of course you considered a few brief scenes that got pretty intense.

Sandra Bullock, in my opinion, is an actress who has depth. She is well versed, very versatile.  She can do the comedy, the drama, and the romance and come out on top almost all the time. In All About Steve you are going to be taken by surprise when you see the transformation that Sandra Bullock has undergone.  She is darker, has more auburn hair, and you can tell she has been working out more because her body is more toned than I have ever seen her.  If you have seen the movie The Proposal you can see the difference from that movie to this.  I've never watched a movie with her in it that I wasn't able to enjoy.  Perhaps I am drawn to her because through the years I have been compared to her with some physical attributes and my quirkiness as well as my very klutzy mannerisms.  Watch Miss Congeniality or The Proposal and you are almost seeing Gigi in action.

The leading characters in All About Steve are:

• Sandra Bullock as Mary Horowitz
• Bradley Cooper as Steve
• Howard Hesseman as Mr. Horowitz
• Beth Grant as Mrs. Horowitz
• Thomad Haden Church as Hartman Hughes
• Ken Jeong as Angus
• Jason Jones as Vasquez
• MC Gainey as Norm the truck driver
• DJ Qualls as Howard
• Katy Mixon as Elizabeth

Sandra Bullock is a crossword constructor.  She creates her own crosswords and has one published each week in a local newspaper.  For her, creating these crosswords is a way to bring enjoyment/entertainment to others and basically filling a void in her own life. Like trying to find the missing answers to the questions you are asking yourself and how does everything fit into the grand scheme of things?

Mary has recently moved in with her parents because she is having her apartment fumigated.  Her parents are a retro version of the Brady's.  When you see the interior of their house you think you have been transported back to the late 60s or early 70s and sometimes it's as if the wardrobe came with them.  Mary seems a bit backwards so her parents are always setting her up on blind dates and usually they end up being gay.  Well, her most recent blind date is going to be with Steve and when Mary realizes he's not gay she is quickly smitten by him and like a lion is on the prowl.

The first date becomes very intense and quite funny as Mary attempts to seduce Steve.  He thinks this great looking woman has wigged out on him so he takes a phone call asking him to be in Boston so he makes an excuse that he must leave and tells Mary that he would love for her to come with him but he knows she has a job to do.  Thus, begins the adventure of a lifetime for Mary as she sets off to follow, some would say stalk, Steve.

Steve is the camera man for a local news show.  Hartman Hughes is a so so reporter who has a dream to become a news anchor.  He knows he can achieve this if he can just be given the opportunity to cover a headlining story so he also travels the country trying to be a part of the larger headlines.  However, he is competing against a rival station and anchor, Vasquez.  Hartman encourages Mary to follow the news crew because like the movie title There's Something About Mary he knows there's something special about her.  She has such wisdom and the little things she shares with him seems to give him an advantage over his contemporaries.  So he gives her the heads up on where Steve will be going next so that she can pursue him.

Because Mary is a crossword constructor she has a very impressive vocabulary which tends to confound most people.  While trying to get to Boston she encounters Norm the truck driver and Howard and Elizabeth.  Howard designs people's faces out of apples.  Some may recognize Elizabeth (Katy Mixon) from the recent tv show Make It Or Break It and every time I see her I can't help but think how this brunette resembles Reese Witherspoon.

While traveling cross country with Mary, Howard, and Elizabeth your heart is going to be entertained.  You will laugh 'til your stomach hurts ("She's got a machete!") and then when you least expect it the tears begin to fall.  You'll be amazed at just how smart Mary is and even more amazed at how the movie ends.

Watch the movie if you want to see:

• Some of the headlines that are covered.
• What happens to encourage Mary to follow Steve?
• The headline that might catapault Hartman's career and what Mary has to do with this.
• Does Mary get Steve?
• What's the significance of Mary's red gogo boots?

I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would because of the last 15-30 minutes; which had me in tears.  I will definitely want to add this to my collection because for me it was just a real good feel good movie basically with the moral: "Don't judge a book by its cover."  The only difference is that when completing a crossword puzzle you can cheat if you need an answer but in life, sometimes there are no answers, just opportunities, chances, decisions, etc.