PICTURE PERFECT

From Glenn Gordon Caron, the executive producer and writer of TV’s MOONLIGHTING, comes PICTURE PERFECT, a feature film which teams FRIENDS star Jennifer Aniston with Jay Mohr, co-star of JERRY MAGUIRE. In PICTURE PERFECT, Aniston and Mohr meet and fall in love in a formulaic, but agreeable story which pits corporate ambition against personal moral dilemmas. To its credit, PICTURE PERFECT champions virtuous moral choices over career ambition, although it omits God.

PICTURE PERFECT begins as ambitious career woman, Kate (Jennifer Aniston), thanks her friend Darcy (Illeana Douglas) for getting her hired at the Mercer Advertising Agency in New York. She asks Darcy how she can get invited to participate on an agency advertising campaign. Darcy tells her that the boss won’t promote her unless she shows substantive evidence of stability in her life. Darcy tells her she needs a fiancé.

Stymied, Kate goes home to contend with her overprotective mother (Olympia Dukakis), who insists that she take good account of the men she will meet at a friend’s Hindu wedding, “because a wedding is a great place to meet people.” At the wedding, she meets Nick (Jay Mohr), a wedding photographer, who finds her attractive. In a funny scene, she is the only single woman attending the function and grabs the flowers from the bride before she tosses them in the time-honored tradition. Since the wedding couple distributed cheap cameras to all the guests and encouraged them to take pictures of the event, Kate sits down with Nick and pretends to hold and caress him as someone snaps a picture.

Back at the advertising agency, Mr. Mercer confirms what Darcy told her. He expects his employees to demonstrate ties to the community and loyalty to the firm so that they won’t jump ship and take Mercer clients with them to other agencies. Then, Darcy tells Kate that she lied to the boss and informed him that Kate is engaged to Nick, the man she is caressing in the picture. Darcy tells her that the boss has given her the ad campaign she coveted.

Stunned, Kate agrees to play along with Darcy’s fiction, travels to Massachusetts, meets Nick and offers to pay him $1000 to stage a public breakup. Refusing the money, he reluctantly agrees to the deception. Nick tells her that he was intending to give her a call anyway. When Nick comes south, Kate fabricates a false relationship history and asks Nick to memorize it. At a client get-acquainted dinner, Kate trumps up emotion and spurns Nick, alleging that she knows he is cheating on her. Outraged and protective of her, Mr. Mercer promotes Kate to lead the mustard ad campaign as a single woman, saying that she will have plenty of opportunities to meet eligible men during the campaign.

Then, Kate meets the still-genial Nick outside of the fancy hotel and realizes Nick’s innate goodness and selflessness. Her unexpected feeling of love for him intrude on her career manipulations. The movie ends as Kate publicly reveals the truth about their fabricated plan and goes back to Massachusetts to try to reconcile with Nick.

Playing second fiddle to this year’s romantic hit, MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING, PICTURE PERFECT tells an appealing moral tale set amidst the cynical realities of modern Madison Avenue. For Kate, telling the truth about her scheming represents the endpoint of her character’s arc. Her willingness to confess to her guilt sets this movie way above the average Hollywood romantic comedy in its moral content. Kate’s honesty is a refreshing gush of cool water in a advertising desert seemingly devoid of spiritual values. PICTURE PERFECT also omits any mention of God.

Yet, like many modern romantic comedies, this movie is marred by depicted and implied fornication, championing love, but also including sex. Hence, this lighthearted, frolicsome picture cannot maintain its moral rectitude.