I'm usually not a stickler for continuity errors or anachronisms in a film. Making a motion picture is a very complicated beast and you can't get all that upset if a few minor mistakes creep in. A line has to be drawn somewhere, however, and I have to draw it right down the middle of Jack and Jill vs. The World. The character played by Freddie Prinze Jr. has a fairly large shoulder tattoo and throughout the movie it moves from the left shoulder to his right, to his left, to his right, to his left, to his right and finally back to his left. That's pretty egregious but it's not why I'm pointing it out.
The tattoo is at least 6 to 8 inches long and 3 to 5 inches wide, not the sort of thing anyone gets as a lark. Yet there's no explanation ever given for it and it doesn't in any way fit the character Prinze Jr. is playing. If the tattoo had served some purpose in the story, somebody probably would have noticed that it kept switching from one shoulder to the other. But it was just some random detail inserted into the script for no particular reason, which is how I'd describe a lot of things in this film. Jack and Jill vs. The World is littered with random details and excess scenes that aren't even tangentially connected to the story being told.
Jack (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is a successful young ad man in New York City. He meets a bohemian aspiring actress named Jill (Taryn Manning) and instantly invites her to move in with him. You'd think it would be because he would want to bang her, but that would require the screenplay to treat Jack like a real human being. Instead, he does it out of the platonic goodness of his heart, until Jill finally throws herself at him. They then proceed to hang out more like college roommates who occasionally boink instead of boyfriend and girlfriend, only to eventually break up over a secret that Jill keeps from Jack long after any decent person would have told him. Jack responds to that like a complete dick but they get back together because well, I think it's legally required under federal statute that every feeble attempt at romantic comedy finishes with the two stars back in each other's arms.
While Jack and Jill are doing their whole thing, Jack also spends an inordinate amount of screen time at work with his ad writing partner George (Peter Stebbings). Now, it's standard for the male lead in a rom com to have a best friend and it's not unusual for those two guys to have a lot of scenes together, but this movie takes the cake. There is so much more interaction between Jack and George than Jack and Jill that it would have made perfect sense for the story to end with the two guys admitting their gay love for each other and running away to Fire Island. And of course, Jill also has a zany best friend of her own in Lucy (Vanessa Parise). Jill and Lucy have far fewer scenes together than Jack and George, which is also weirdly standard for rom coms, but Lucy does have two scenes that are entirely about her character, something George never has.
If Peter Stebbings and Vanessa Parise hadn't written this script and Parise hadn't directed this movie, the roles of George and Lucy would have been greatly reduced or possibly eliminated. Neither of them ultimately contributes a damn thing to the story except as plot devices. Maybe the time spent on them could have been used to develop the relationship between Jack and his father (Robert Forster), rather than having it reduced to three scenes that only make sense if you realize they're trying to do the exact same father-son garbage you've seen in umpteen other films.
And I can't forget about the alarm clock. Jack lives in an apartment with otherwise modern, moderately stylish furnishings. But in his bedroom is an alarm clock straight out of the 1970s with the numbers that flip over like an old scoreboard. The clock is also patched together with a bunch of duct tape. Am I wrong, or does it sound like Jack having such an incongruous appliance should have some sort of significance? Where did it come from? Why does he still have it? That sort of thing. You won't be surprised to learn there's no explanation or reason given for the clock, even though it's prominently featured several times. I suppose the whole clock back story could have been edited out, but this film is barely 90 minutes long. Another 2 or 3 minutes couldn't have been added so that at least one frickin' detail wouldn't have been so random?
Jack and Jill vs. The World is a flabby, unfocused mess with a fundamental premise so clichéd and hoary that it can't carry the extra weight and collapses long before the movie is over. Unless you need to see a Taryn Manning nip slip, skip this thing.
The tattoo is at least 6 to 8 inches long and 3 to 5 inches wide, not the sort of thing anyone gets as a lark. Yet there's no explanation ever given for it and it doesn't in any way fit the character Prinze Jr. is playing. If the tattoo had served some purpose in the story, somebody probably would have noticed that it kept switching from one shoulder to the other. But it was just some random detail inserted into the script for no particular reason, which is how I'd describe a lot of things in this film. Jack and Jill vs. The World is littered with random details and excess scenes that aren't even tangentially connected to the story being told.
Jack (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is a successful young ad man in New York City. He meets a bohemian aspiring actress named Jill (Taryn Manning) and instantly invites her to move in with him. You'd think it would be because he would want to bang her, but that would require the screenplay to treat Jack like a real human being. Instead, he does it out of the platonic goodness of his heart, until Jill finally throws herself at him. They then proceed to hang out more like college roommates who occasionally boink instead of boyfriend and girlfriend, only to eventually break up over a secret that Jill keeps from Jack long after any decent person would have told him. Jack responds to that like a complete dick but they get back together because well, I think it's legally required under federal statute that every feeble attempt at romantic comedy finishes with the two stars back in each other's arms.
While Jack and Jill are doing their whole thing, Jack also spends an inordinate amount of screen time at work with his ad writing partner George (Peter Stebbings). Now, it's standard for the male lead in a rom com to have a best friend and it's not unusual for those two guys to have a lot of scenes together, but this movie takes the cake. There is so much more interaction between Jack and George than Jack and Jill that it would have made perfect sense for the story to end with the two guys admitting their gay love for each other and running away to Fire Island. And of course, Jill also has a zany best friend of her own in Lucy (Vanessa Parise). Jill and Lucy have far fewer scenes together than Jack and George, which is also weirdly standard for rom coms, but Lucy does have two scenes that are entirely about her character, something George never has.
If Peter Stebbings and Vanessa Parise hadn't written this script and Parise hadn't directed this movie, the roles of George and Lucy would have been greatly reduced or possibly eliminated. Neither of them ultimately contributes a damn thing to the story except as plot devices. Maybe the time spent on them could have been used to develop the relationship between Jack and his father (Robert Forster), rather than having it reduced to three scenes that only make sense if you realize they're trying to do the exact same father-son garbage you've seen in umpteen other films.
And I can't forget about the alarm clock. Jack lives in an apartment with otherwise modern, moderately stylish furnishings. But in his bedroom is an alarm clock straight out of the 1970s with the numbers that flip over like an old scoreboard. The clock is also patched together with a bunch of duct tape. Am I wrong, or does it sound like Jack having such an incongruous appliance should have some sort of significance? Where did it come from? Why does he still have it? That sort of thing. You won't be surprised to learn there's no explanation or reason given for the clock, even though it's prominently featured several times. I suppose the whole clock back story could have been edited out, but this film is barely 90 minutes long. Another 2 or 3 minutes couldn't have been added so that at least one frickin' detail wouldn't have been so random?
Jack and Jill vs. The World is a flabby, unfocused mess with a fundamental premise so clichéd and hoary that it can't carry the extra weight and collapses long before the movie is over. Unless you need to see a Taryn Manning nip slip, skip this thing.