Because I Said So is fluffy feel good comedy at its best.  Director Michael Lehmann (Heathers) has not lost his edge for crisp satire, and great performances from all the cast make this seemingly conventional rom-com go the extra mile and provide much guilty pleasure. As the busy-body mother Daphne Wilder, Diane Keaton camps up the role with her on-screen daughters Mandy Moore , Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls), and Piper Perabo.

Keaton not only looks fabulous in wasp-waisted dresses with 1950s-style wide circle skirts (and tonnes of polka-dotted petticoats) but also has impeccable comic-timing throughout.  Her character reminded me of a young Woody Allen, almost satirising the roles of Allen’s youth, when she was often his co-star.  Her neurotic, anxious, controlling and immature Daphne Wilder, in both mannerisms and hysteria, is so much like Allen it is eerie.  This is very much a caricature of the unfulfilled, lonely, middle-aged person trying with no sense of boundaries or propriety to live vicariously through their offspring .  She is utterly ridiculous and impossible, and for me this made her wonderfully unique, very funny, and terribly charming in all her gawkishness.

Daphne posts a dating advertisement looking for a partner for her daughter Milly (Mandy Moore).  She interviews numerous losers in a stock standard montage, and of course unwittingly attracts the attention of a musician whom she feels is entirely not the sort of solid chap her daughter should date.  While Daphne encourages her daughter to date a dull, rich snob, Milly also dates the musician her mother considers undesirable.  The usual rom-com hi-jinks follow with Milly unaware of Daphne’s advert, Moore’s lovers unaware of each other, and Daphne trying to pull the strings.

Mandy Moore really impresses in this film.  She plays the type of independent and sassy new woman character not seen since the hey-day of tough dames in the 1940s.  Moore’s Milly sleeps with both men, as she is interested in them both and unwilling forgo trying before she buys.  While American television often talks about people dating for a while and deciding to be ‘exclusive’, rarely, if ever, does the ‘nice’ girl shag more than one man (Mandy Moore is no tramp, bimbo, or vixen – she is hot, but in the Doris Day girl next door way).

The traditional romantic comedy narrative tends to build toward a ‘climax’ of the star-crossed lovers finally getting it on.  However, Because I Said So eschews sex as a goal, rather aiming for honesty and emotional intimacy.  This is interesting as it removes the romantic notion of the sexual act being the greatest expression of affection.  Instead, sex is a way for Moore to get to know the men and achieve her real goal – feeling close, and being able to trust and understand these men, to see if they can feel the same way.  This is unusual in many ways, not only because it reverses the traditional notion of falling in love then having sex, but because it demystifies sex into an activity that is not a big deal, or a cosmic moment, but simply one of the many ways people communicate.

Milly's seemingly casual approach to sex inevitably motivates Daphne to get her own life and lover, and to stop interfering in the romances of her daughters.  There are really no surprises here.  From the first upbeat incidental music, a happy ending is guaranteed; everyone will be paired off before the final credits.  However, Because I Said So is wonderfully self-aware of its genre and makes the journey a whole lot of fun; although many of the gags are unoriginal, they are executed to perfection.

What was most unusual for me was how the male characters were completely in the shadows – this is very much a movie about women and how different they are from one another.  Daphne’s three daughters Milly, Maggie and Mae are as unlike her as they are to each other.  The complex and multi-layered relationships between these four women enrich what is at first glance a by-the-numbers rom-com.

In one of the most memorable scenes the camera pans over the bodies and underwear of Daphne and her three daughters, and none of their bodies are perfect.  The camera glides over cellulite and bulges in three average, but attractive women.  In many ways, this is the most radical scene in the film – no body doubles, no ribcages sticking out.  These women are healthy and slender, but they are gloriously imperfect.  The characters may be very humorous because of their flaws, but this is not the self-deprecating woman-comedienne standard, but neither is it a clear feminist film.

While the female characters celebrate their autonomy, finding a man is promoted as the key to satisfaction.  The glaring Pride & Prejudice-ness of it all is played for laughs in the main and it is done as a bit of a lark.  The matchmaking plot is more of a backdrop to the film’s emphasis on the importance of friendships between woman in all their dimpled, klutzy, mischievous stubbornness and humility. This is subtle story, billed as light fair but with some wonderfully ambiguous shades of grey in the depictions of women’s different expressions of their sexuality and desire.  There are even plenty of gay characters on the periphery, and a wonderfully passionate lesbian snog between two octogenarians. 


Because I Said So
2007

Director: Michael Lehmann
Screenwriters: Karen Leigh Hopkins, Jessie Nelson
Cinematographer: Julio Macat
Editor: Paul Seydor, Troy Takaki
Original Music: David Kitay
Cast: Diane Keaton, Diane Keaton, Lauren Graham, Piper Perabo