Review of Kate & Leopold (2001) by Spangle — 15 Feb 2017

An inventive and charming romantic comedy with a time travelling twist, Kate & Leopold feels similar to the more recent About Time, but with less impeccable cuteness. Yet, what is lacks in cuteness is makes up for with charm from Hugh Jackman. A real life version of an internet user calling every girl "m'lady", but with the plot twist of him actually meaning it, Jackman plays Leopold, Duke of Albany. Brought to 2001 from 1876 by his great grandson Stuart (Liev Schreiber), a scientist who discovered time portals, time bends and stars collide when he meets Kate (Meg Ryan). The ex-girlfriend of Stuart, Kate and Leopold quickly fall for one another, but must overcome the fact that their time period is over 100 years apart and Leopold must go back to 1876 or Stuart will not be born. Sticky stuff, really. In the vital words of Matthew McConaughey, "Time is a flat circle". Kate & Leopold is the very embodiment of this.

Hinting at its finale - that Kate and Leopold will be together, duh - from the very first scene when Leopold notices Stuart taking photos at a party thrown to celebrate Leopold choosing a wife. As Leopold chases after Stuart, he runs past Kate at the party. How did she get there, you ask? You honestly know without watching the movie. This is the problem with these romantic comedies. They are also so predictable. Kate & Leopold is no exception and is not set to bust expectations. Its time traveling makes no sense and ill-defined, just as in About Time. But man is it ever charming. It is romantic and shows that nothing can keep people apart, but sometimes, you just have to take a leap of faith in order to land the one person meant for you. Here, Jackman and Ryan sell it hard with terrific chemistry, Jackman turning up the charm, and Ryan playing an unlikable, but soon oddly cute character in this romantic comedy. Funnily enough, the film gets a bit self-reflexive in a deleted scene added in the director's cut with Kate at a movie screening in her job as a market researcher. Complaining to the film's director that the entire test audience hated the lead because she was unlikable, he fires back that he believes she is likable, but screws up sometimes and deserves a pass for that just as Kate would get a pass. In a bit of self-reflexiveness, Kate fires back that she is not a character in a romantic comedy. Though not a crucial scene, it is a funny bit since Kate is an unlikable character in a romantic comedy on the surface.

In reality, she is not unlikable at all. How would one react to hearing that a time portal was opened by your ex-boyfriend? Well, Stuart gets locked up in a mad house for spouting off that he opened a portal and both Kate and her brother Charlie (Breckin Meyer) write him off as a hardcore method actor. Kate even goes so far as casting him as a spokesman for a crappy butter company. She is a career-focused woman who gets met with pervy bosses who want her to sleep with them for promotions. Her whole day is marketing crappy products to moronic customers and she, though she spins it in her mind, is unhappy with this lifestyle. She wants more and when offered more by Leopold, it is really an offer she cannot refuse.

Featuring Jackman at his most charming and Ryan, coming off of some plastic surgery that made her upper lip curl up oddly and be too full (it is really distracting once you notice it) and from making romantic movies with every popular 1980s/1990s/early 2000s actor (no seriously, Tom Hanks, Denzel, Matthew Broderick, Kevin Kline, Billy Crystal, Nicolas Cage, Russell Crowe, and Val Kilmer), gets to add another popular leading man from the era to her stable. The duo making for an alluring pairing and really do work together. The are a bit of romantic foils with Leopold a hopelessly old fashioned romantic and Kate a "masculine", career-focused woman who wants romance, but never thinks she will be able to find it. While not inventive here, it does work impeccably well.

Charming, interesting due to the time travel angle, and pairing together two equally charismatic leads, Kate & Leopold is definitely an early-2000s film. That said, it is a fun film that has some messy time travel, is cliched, and predictable, but like a good McDonald's burger with some fries and a coke, it is entirely irresistible when you are hungry.