Director Report Card: Michael Lehmann (2007) Part One

8. Because I Said So

Even though "40 Days and 40 Nights" made a little bit of money, the period immediately following that film's release is when Michael Lehmann turned his primary focus from feature films to television. Between 2002 and 2007, he directed 9 episodes of TV, such as installments of "Wonderfalls" and "The Comeback." Maybe those past box office failures caught up with him. Maybe he was tired of trying to sneak his quirky sense of humor into bland studio comedies. Judging from the results, I can't imagine that was very satisfying. Or perhaps TV was just more fulfilling at this point. Whatever the reason, Lehmann has mostly done TV in the last two decades... Except for the year 2007, where he had two new feature films, kind of. The first of these to see release was "Because I Said So," which saw the filmmaker returning to the romantic comedy genre that had given him his greatest commercial success so far. 

Daphne raised three daughters by herself after her husband died. Oldest daughters Maggie and Mae are successful professionals with husbands. Youngest Milly, however, can't seem to find the right man. Manipulative and smothering Daphne decides this is her problem to solve. She places a wanted ad to find Milly a mate. The most promising candidate is Jason and Daphne secretly sets up a meeting. However, the ad also catches the attention of guitarist Johnny, who also meets Milly and becomes smitten with her. Soon, Milly has to choose between two men... But maybe her mother's prying ways is what she should be most concerned about. 

"Because I Said So" is mostly a vehicle for Diane Keaton, who was experiencing an unexpected career resurgence in the mid-2000s after the surprise success of "Something's Gotta Give." Keaton, of course, is an Oscar winning actress of incredible charm and talent. However, Keaton's abilities are not enough to overcome that Daphne is a terrible person. She is constantly criticizing Milly, insulting her appearances and nitpicking every life choice she makes. A mother trying to secretly manipulate her daughter into dating what she thinks is the ideal partner is, ya know, crazy. In real life, that would be horror movie behavior. The film takes its title from Daphne's catchphrase, which is a good example of the tyrannical hold she wants over her children's lives. She's a deeply selfish person. No matter how much "Because I Said So" may or may not acknowledge this, it still wants us to like Daphne. That's just impossible because the character is a nightmare parent whose psychotic actions should not be tolerated in any form.

If "Because I Said So" was a knowingly fucked-up satire, like "Heathers," maybe such an irredeemably awful character would be an interesting choice. But this isn't that kind of movie. Instead, "Because I Said So" endeavors to be a wacky screwball comedy. In order to make Daphne endearing, I guess, the script also makes her ludicrously clumsy. This results in a number of slapstick sequence that are so aggressively wacky, they become obnoxious. Daphne tries to stalk Milly on her date with Jason, nearly crashing her car in the process. She drags a cellphone through cake batter while burning brownies. Her computer repeatedly clicks on a porn site, resulting in erotic noises echoing through the room while she struggles to turn it off. It's pedestrian, at best, and honestly makes me feel embarrassed for Diane Keaton. Is subpar pratfalls like this what Annie Hall deserves?

Unfortunately for the viewer, most of "Because I Said So's" humor is pitched at this manic level. There's so many annoying characters in this movie. Such as Maggie's deeply neurotic patient, that the film repeatedly humiliates in mean-spirited ways. Or Johnny's son, a rambunctious little boy who throws cakes in people's faces, insults people, and shouts about boys having penises and girls having vaginas. (A joke stolen from "Kindergarten Cop.") The scene of Daphne screening potential mates for her daughter features a lot of broad characters doing annoying things. The film is so desperate for laughs that it, once again, resorts to the animal reaction shot. Daphne's golden retriever also randomly humps things, in another aggravatingly loud attempt at humor. There's also at least two unflattering racial stereotypes, in the form of Chinese masseurs and a singing Indian man.

"Because I Said So" isn't just annoying, it's obvious too. Ostensibly, the dramatic crux of the story is whether Milly will choose Johnny or Jason as her future husband. Jason is a micro-manager with a bit of a temper, who has no problem going along with Daphne's insane scheme. Johnny, meanwhile, is a calm, endlessly patient man who teaches disabled kids to play guitar on the weekends. It's immediately evident which guy Milly will end up with in the end. I guess the film deserves points for not making Johnny a full-blown villain. He's just a normal, boring jerk. Yet I can't give the script any credit for expecting us to get invested in whether Milly will go with the boring asshole or the most perfect guy the screenwriters could conceive.

Keaton is more or less the star of the film. Daphne even gets her own romantic subplot, eventually developing a relationship with Johnny's stepdad. (There's no acknowledgement of how that's kind of weird.) However, "Because I Said So" is also something of a vehicle for Mandy Moore. Moore, a mildly charming actress I guess, did a string of mediocre rom-coms around this time too. Moore at least succeeds in making Milly less off-putting than her mom. She's also comically clumsy but Moore is thankfully spared any hideously broad physical comedy of her own. Milly also sings in two scenes, seemingly a nod towards Moore's forgettable side hustle as a bubblegum pop princess. Moore may not be all that compelling an actress but her scenes in "Because I Said So" is among the film's more tolerable. 

Milly does have something else in common with her though: She's also a terrible person. Instead of calling it off with Jason when she meets Johnny, she decides to date them both at the same time. Without telling either of them. Yes, she's having sex with both men as well. Yeah, the movie's down-to-earth protagonist is a cheater. Usually rom-coms consider infidelity the most unforgivable of crimes. For some reason, Milly mostly gets a pass for it. The cheating provides the obligatory end-of-the-second-act contrivances that forced the boy and the girl apart, that all rom-coms must include. Ultimately, both men forgive her selfish, deceitful actions and Milly still ends up with the right guy. I guess it's okay when Mandy Moore does it

Perhaps there’s a reason “Because I Said So” deemed it necessary to have Milly sleep with both of the guys pursuing here. Much like Lehmann’s previous movie, this one is uncomfortably horny in many ways. The four female leads are introduced in their underwear, the camera lingering strangely on their behinds. It is shown that Milly’s sisters have healthy sex lives of their own. Daphne’s love affair with her daughter’s boyfriend’s dad is consummated on-screen. The thing about this that makes me feel most uncomfortable is the frank way Daphne’s daughters talk with their moms about their sex lives. Maybe that’s not an unusual habit for some families. Maybe I’ve got hang-ups. But the idea of my mom ever talking to me about how often she orgasms makes my skin want to crawl right off my body. All the humping was expected in a crude comedy like “40 Days and 40 Nights” but definitely feels a little unsightly in a light PG-13 flick like this. The film’s weirdly horny side extended to the marketing, which included panties with the character’s names written across the back. 

This, it turns out, is not the only aspect “Because I Said So” shared with “40 Days and 40 Nights.” Much like “My Giant” as well, this is a wacky comedy that develops a strangely maudlin streak in its last third. There’s an extended phone conversation where Daphne breaks down in tears, trying to apologize to her daughter for being such a horrible mother. The film stops just shy of the character truly accepting full responsibly for her controlling actions. Daphne is forgiven far too easily. Even if the film was, somehow, able to pull off a tonal shift like this, it’s difficult to take an emotional moment like this too seriously when Daphne’s humanity has already been stripped away by so many scenes of broad slapstick. The character is a total cartoon character and trying to have her cry and emote about her flaws simply isn’t believable.

I’ll admit, this was actually my second time watching “Because I Said So.” I rented it from Netflix not too long after it first came out on DVD, largely because “Gilmore Girls’” Lauren Graham plays Maggie. Graham is, in fact, one of the film’s few bright spots. Though the character is still ridiculous, the relationship she shares with her most dysfunctional patient is mildly amusing. It was also nice to see an energetic Piper Perabo as Mae. The rest of “Because I Said So’s’ cast isn’t really worth mentioning. Neither Gabriel Macht, as Johnny, or Tom Everett Scott, as Jason, can rise above the material. However, one face does stick out… Stephen Collins plays Johnny’s dad. He shares several scenes with the young boy playing Johnny’s son. Collins was best known, at the time, for his role on wholesome show “7th Heaven” but is now perhaps better known for being a convicted child molester. This certainly adds a very different uncomfortable layer to many of his scenes. 

Once again, it’s wholly impossible to see much of the visual playfulness that defined Lehmann’s earlier work in this bland studio rom-com. However, you can see the director, straining to add some sort of energy to the movie in a couple of scenes. A few moments feature split-screen phone conversations with the sisters and their mother. There’s at least one sped-up montage of Milly and Daphne rearranging a living room together. (Another strained metaphor for how the mother controls her daughter’s life.) The film concludes with a cartoonish close-up of a wedding cake careening off a cliff side. All of these touches come off as desperate and overly wacky. Yet, at the same time, they are still the most likable moments in a movie otherwise defined by shrill obnoxiousness. 

At the very least, I am not alone in disliking “Because I Said So.” The film received heinous reviews over all, with the majority of critics agreeing that it’s painfully unfunny. A small audience still turned out for the movie in theaters and it was not a total box office loss, though still far from a runaway hit either. It’s possible, had “Because I Said So” not made its mother character such an unforgivable monster, that it might have been a salvageable project. Yet even if you changed that, you’d still be left with a movie far too reliant on rom-com clichés and annoying sequences of cartoonish slapstick. It all adds up to be a wholly unpleasant viewing experience. The director, the cast, and audiences deserved far better than this. [Grade: F]