It's no wonder Tripp (Matthew McConaughey) has no intentions of leaving his parents' home. His mother (Kathy Bates) cooks, washes and cleans for him as if she were a maid.
Tripp is well into his 30s, so mom and dad (Terry Bradshaw) understandably feel it's time he vacated the nest so they can enjoy some quality time together and he can find quality time somewhere else on his own.
To this end, they hire Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), an expert on this live-at-home phenomenon, to give Tripp the little push he needs.
Paula pretends to bump into the guy and strikes up a promising relationship, which gives him enough confidence to get his own digs and a real life.
Paula has had a great success rate in the past with such nerds, but those guys really were losers.
Tripp is a hunk with a great social life, so this assignment is going to prove considerably more difficult.
Of course Paula will find herself falling for Tripp and he will discover she's being paid to court him.
Wait, doesn't that make Paula a sex-trade worker, rather than a therapist?
Because Failure to Launch is a fluffy romantic comedy, this little hitch doesn't really matter.
It's all about how long the writers can keep Paula and Tripp chaste and then how they can get them back together again when Tripp feels betrayed.
It's the same thing writers had to do for all those Doris Day and Rock Hudson romantic comedies.
McConaughey went through a similar scenario in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
He knows it's not about deep characterization, but about smiling and looking sexy, which he does with ease.
Parker thinks she has to work overtime to provide the film's angst, so Paula comes off so shrill and manipulative, it's a wonder Tripp would ever see her as his ideal soul and bed mate.
The polite thing would be to blame the lack of chemistry between McConaughey and Parker on Tom Astle and Matt Ember's screenplay, but they managed to get some genuine sparks from Justin Bartha as Tripp's techno-nerd buddy Ace and Zooey Deschanel as Paula's manic depressive roommate Kit.
Bartha and Deschanel are quite credible as the mismatched lovers and they have a hilarious scene with the mockingbird that has driven Kit to drink even more than she usually does.
There's a clever running joke that has the gentlest creatures in the world turning on Tripp because his life is so out of sync with nature.
The funniest and most believable performances come courtesy of Bates and Bradshaw as the bachelor's desperate parents. The talks Bates and Bradshaw have with McConaughey, trying to explain that it's their love and concern that made them hire Paula, are sweet, funny and insightful.
The sensitive, misguided parents and the goofy friends keep stealing focus from the romantic leads, which is dangerous.
It's also why the film lurches more often than it launches.
(This film is rated PG)
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