Life or Something Like It is a romantic comedy that was released in 2002. I found the concept of this movie to be quite intriguing. And let’s be real, you can’t take your eyes off Angelina Jolie. This was definitely the peak of her popularity in films at that time. She plays the main character in this movie, and I can kind of see why she agreed to take on the role.
The movie kicks off with the introduction of her character Lanie. She’s a driven career woman with big plans for her future. Currently, she’s a news reporter who wants to become a reporter for a network television rather than local TV. This seemed to be a big deal back in those times because a lot of movies I’ve watched recently dealt with news reporters.
At first glance, it seems like she’s on top of the world. She has a promising career that appears to be on the rise. Everyone believes she’s ready for success. Her fiancé is a professional baseball player for her hometown team. She’s drop-ᴅᴇᴀᴅ gorgeous, and everyone adores her.
As the movie unfolds, we start to see some cracks in her armor. Apparently, this isn’t the real her. She’s been putting on this facade to advance towards her ultimate goal of becoming a network reporter. This is all put to the test when she covers a news story on a homeless man who seems to be able to predict the future.
In one of the man’s predictions, he claims that Lanie is going to die in a week’s time. It seems ridiculous that a crazy homeless man could predict the future. However, all of his predictions seem to come true with great accuracy. This starts to really scare Lanie as she has her perfect life and doesn’t want to lose everything.
She and her camera man start to break things apart so that she can truly evaluate whether she is really living her true authentic self. Again, it’s a pretty cool idea but the execution could have done with a little editing. I found that the pacing of the movie was a bit off.
I often wondered how I would react if I were in a similar situation as the protagonist of the movie. Personally, I don’t think I would have taken the same path as her. The characters had so many possibilities within the storyline and seemed to have a lot of fun with it. At its core, it’s a romantic comedy, so the focus is on her relationship with the cameraman, Pete. This romantic interest sort of sneaks up out of nowhere and develops quickly when it does.
As a movie, they have a limited window to share these background stories, but the pace is so fast that I could barely keep up. There’s a bit about her family that feels a bit rushed over. I believe they could have added more depth to that part. Then again, back in the days when movies stayed under 2 hours, I have to commend them for that.
I also found it quite amusing how they attempted to make Angelina Jolie unattractive in this movie, but they couldn’t pull it off. She’s distractingly beautiful in this film, standing out like a supermodel among regular people. She just stands out and can’t really help it.
Overall, I thought this was a fun movie that can be enjoyed by fans of the romantic comedy genre. It’s not going to blow your mind or make huge waves when you watch it. It’s just a fun, light-hearted adventure. I have to give this movie a 5.5 out of 10. If you’re bored, I don’t see why you shouldn’t check this one out.
