The story's a stretch, but there's something intrinsically likeable about the characters in Rumor Has It, an improbable romantic comedy about life, love and getting laid
Rumor Has It... (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:106
Fresh:21
Rotten:85
Average Rating:4.4/10
Consensus: This riff on The Graduate has a solid cast, but is too lightweight to fully register.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Comedies
US Box Office: $42,747,869
Synopsis: With the romantic comedy RUMOR HAS IT, director Rob Reiner (WHEN HARRY MET SALLY) attempts the tricky task of creating a film based on an already celebrated classic, 1967's THE GRADUATE. Starring... With the romantic comedy RUMOR HAS IT, director Rob Reiner (WHEN HARRY MET SALLY) attempts the tricky task of creating a film based on an already celebrated classic, 1967's THE GRADUATE. Starring Dustin Hoffman and based on a novel by Charlie Webb, the original film revolved around the love triangle between a recent college-graduate, his girlfriend, and her famously seductive mother. Here, Reiner casts a chain-smoking Shirley MacLaine as the supposed real-life inspiration for Mrs. Robinson, and Jennifer Aniston as her granddaughter. Set for the most part within the gossipy community of Pasadena, California, the film follows Sarah Huttinger (Aniston) and her fiancé (Mark Ruffalo) as they travel home for her perky sister's (Mena Suvari) wedding. Having nothing in common with her family, Sarah is intrigued upon learning that she may actually be the secret love child of her deceased mother and Beau Borroughs (Kevin Costner), the man whose affairs with both Sarah's mother and grandmother supposedly inspired Charlie Webb, a classmate and friend of Beau, to write THE GRADUATE. From here, Sarah seeks out Beau, interested in him as a father-like figure and possibly more. Aniston brings a Rachel-like (FRIENDS) comic vibe to her character, frequently expressing her neuroses by talking to herself out loud in a sitcom-ish style. Costner is plenty capable in his role, but even with Beau's riches and charm, viewers may find it hard to understand why a young woman would embark on a romance with the same man who bedded her mother and grandmother. Reiner's script veers away from the classic romantic comedy formula by keeping Ruffalo's character at the sidelines. Rather, RUMOR HAS IT focuses on one woman's journey towards adulthood, self-realization, and acceptance of her origins via a path that while strange and potentially incestuous, seems to be family tradition. [More]
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Shirley MacLaine, Mark Ruffalo
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Shirley MacLaine, Mark Ruffalo, Mena Suvari, Kathy Bates, Richard Jenkins, Christopher McDonald, Steve Sandvoss, Mike Vogel
Director: Rob Reiner
Director: Rob Reiner
Screenwriter: Ted Griffin
Composer: Marc Shaiman
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for Rumor Has It...
An easy comedy that will please some audiences but disappoint those who seek the cinematic road less traveled.
The film's few high points are outweighed and outnumbered by sequences that don't work and cast choices that should have been re-thought.
Here's a rumor for ya: this is pretty bland stuff, despite all the clever people involved and good intentions to pull off a hip dramedy. Ultimately, Rumor Has It doesn't know what it wants to be.
The film is rife with weird edits and odd looping, so you can guess that something bad happened in the editing room or thereabouts, like, maybe someone noticed the story was nonexistent.
A romantic comedy that misfires thanks to a storyline that is far too complicated.
Meathead has apparently forgotten how to shoot anything that isn't a medium-close-up. (These massive headshots might look awesome... on an iPod.)
For a movie purportedly about the truth behind a movie, the mushy Rumor Has It... feels astoundingly false.
These are shallow, vacuous people who have somewhere along the way confused narcissism with introspection, [and] we the audience are forced to watch them struggle across the vast wastelands of their titanic egos
Contrived to the max and surprisingly unfunny, Rumor Has It is this year's theatrical Christmas turkey.
...Aniston looks out of her league in this thoroughly disjointed film.
Even if it never quite jumps out of the tried-and-true mould, the sharp cast and clever script spice things up.
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