Director: Gil Junger (10 Things I Hate About You)
Screenplay: Michael Horowitz, Daniella Brodsky (novel)
Producers: Hilary Duff, Richard Fischoff
Starring: Hilary Duff, Jennifer Coolidge, Jaime Pressly, Matt Dallas, Chris Carmack, Michael McMillian, Amanda Walsh
MPAA Rating: NA
Running time: 83 min.

(1/5)

I’ve always been prone to the Hilary Duff charm. There’s something about her that draws me in. Sadly, her choice in films has been less than appealing and the string of bad romantic comedies is only occasionally broken by something more worthwhile (I quite enjoyed 2004’s A Cinderella Story and though it wasn’t great, Duff herself was pretty good in War, Inc.) but watching Beauty & the Briefcase, I was reminded of how badly these projects can go and how important a good script is to a story.

Directed by 10 Things I Hate About You’s Gil Junger, from an adaptation of a Daniella Brodsky novel, Duff plays Lane, an aspiring writer who has just published her first story in a local fashion magazine and has aspirations (complete with a wall shrine) to work at Cosmopolitan. Her photographer roommate/best friend, goes out of her way to snag Lane an interview at Cosmo and she’s assigned a story about finding love in the corporate world. The pitch is that she’ll get a job in finance and only date guys in suits in an effort to find Mr. Right. Never mind the fact that the premise itself is ludicrous and full of moral dilemmas, some of that can be overlooked if the movie is fun but this one doesn’t even measure up on the fun factor.

Lane gets a job she’s not qualified for but grows into. She goes around dating guys in the office looking for Mr. Right and eventually, through a strange but somewhat believable series of events, comes to realize that the man she really wants is her boss, a man she has nothing in common with. Apparently opposites do attract. Is that the moral of the story here or is that love comes calling from unexpected places? Again, I’m not sure it matters with Beauty & the Briefcase because the movie is such a waste of time.

Duff is as chipper and charming as ever but her character’s ability to chalk up her dating habits to research is a little disconcerting and even when she finally realizes that Tom (who is so vanilla here but was so darn fantastic in “True Blood”) is the guy for her… there doesn’t seem to be any emotional connection between the two. How can you have romance without some connection?

On paper, Beauty & the Briefcase fits the PG rating likely required for ABC Family (the TV channel which originally aired the film) but what of the story itself which fits Lena into the category of a woman essentially whoring herself out for a job? Seriously? Since when is this acceptable? Admittedly she’s not sleeping with them but the fact that this is the premise of this story is what’s problematic.

I would have been thrilled if Beauty & the Briefcase was a mediocre romantic comedy but there are so many red flags raised in this film which is clearly marketed at the teen crowd that it scares me a little. Not only is this a poor exercise in filmmaking, it sends a bad message about what women will do for both work and love. This is not the type of thing teens girls should be watching and the fact that Duff saw this as material that was OK for her image gives me pause. I’ll definitely be looking a little more closely the next time I decide to jump into a sweet looking romantic comedy.

Beauty & the Briefcase is available on DVD and Blu-Ray on February 22nd.

DVD Extras: None.