Because I Said So 2007 Directed By: Michael Lehmann Cast: Diane Keaton, Mandy Moore, Gariel Macht, Tom Everett Scott

Written by: Ricardo Barberini May 25, 2007

Diane Keaton has seen better days and been in better movies.  In our youth oriented society, as actors get older and less in demand, they will accept almost any role to either pay the rent or keep their egos gratified.  So, they put their not so pretty faces on the silver screen that they once ruled.

In this movie, Diane Keaton plays Daphne, a single middle aged mother with three grown daughters.  She actually looks more like a woman in her seventies.  Two of the daughters are happily married.  Millie (Mandy Moore) the youngest one is still looking for Mr. Right!  Millie is a career woman and she is professionally competent, but cannot date and/or keep boyfriends.  Daphne is so desperate to marry her off that she constantly meddles in her life by telling her what to wear and how to laugh (or not to actually) and even how to arrange the furniture in her apartment.  All this is making Millie less confident of herself.  Daphne decides to take matters into her own hands.  She places a personal ad in the paper offering to interview men who would be interested in dating and marrying her daughter.

As you would expect, in a movie of this caliber, Daphne meets many weirdoes and misfits and even some scary characters.  Eventually, she finds a young successful architect, Jason played by Tom Everett Scott, who seems just right. 

Daphne arranges for a “chance” meeting between her daughter Millie and Jason and the two hit if off right away.  If you find that unbelievable, there is more. 

Meanwhile, Millie accidentally meets an odd guitar player Johnny, played by Gabriel Macht and finds him irresistible. 

Millie being a “modern” girl sleeps with both of them.  For some strange reason both men want to marry her, even after discovering that she is cheating on them.

The two men are totally different.  Johnny has a mischievous autistic boy and lives in a ramshackle house with his father Joe, (Stephen Collins), who looks after the kid. Jason, on the other hand, comes from a moneyed Eastern Establishment family.

In the best tradition of stupid movie plots, Millie eventually dumps the rich architect to marry the musician with no money and a problem child. Not only that, Daphne, the frigid constipated Diane Keaton suddenly finds love with Joe the guitar player’s father, beds him and marries him.

As a comedy, this movie has, at most, about ten minutes worth of laughter.  The rest is a rehash of old routines such as the one about a neurotic patient who lacks self confidence because people keep ignoring him. 

Diane Keaton plays herself.  An overbearing, neurotic, annoying frustrated old woman.   Mandy Moore is actually funny in an off beat sort of a way.  As for the other actors, they were either miscast or lack talent and will be forgotten by the movie going public after a few more non-descript roles.

The movie was directed by Michael Lehmann.  He is the guy who gave us Hudson Hawk which ranks up there, or is it down there, with Plan 9 from Outer Space.  The only difference being that poor Ed Wood Jr. did not have two pennies to rub together and was finished after that movie but Michael is still making them.

We give this movie   If you think cheating on your fiancé is ok and Diane Keaton is funny, then by all means rent it.