Posted on Fri, Apr. 11, 2008
'What if all of this is a mistake?" asks the rattled groom, questioning the vows he's about to take, and the woman he's about to take them with.
Chaos Theory isn't really about that groom, or his bride, but it is about marriage, and notions of fidelity, and paternity, too. A quasi-screwball romantic comedy starring Ryan Reynolds (his second 2008 rom-com, and it's only April!),
Chaos Theory begins with the aforementioned bride-to-be's dad trying to assuage the fears of the young man experiencing his crisis of doubt.
The dad is Reynolds - in a beard and wisps of aging makeup. The bulk of
Chaos Theory flashes back some 15 years earlier, when Reynolds' Frank Allen, an author of time management books (
The Five-Minute Efficiency Trainer is his best seller) who lives by index cards and to-do lists, is happily married to a beautiful schoolteacher (Emily Mortimer). Their daughter, cute and smart, is a mere 7.
But then, to illustrate the crazy ups and downs of wedded life to his jittery prospective son-in-law, Frank recounts the experiences that began innocently enough on a day he missed a ferry and showed up late for his own lecture on the efficient use of time. Momentous mishaps ensue.
Written by Daniel Taplitz and directed by Marcos Siega (
Pretty Persuasion),
Chaos Theory comically, if sometimes clunkily, chronicles the near-demise of the Allens' marriage as wife Susan comes to suspect her husband of adultery, fathering another woman's child and even, perhaps, being a bigamist.
But that's not the half of it: Frank gets a shock of his own, and comes to suspect that Mortimer's Susan isn't the pure and faithful mother of their child that he thought her to be.
Which throws Frank's relationship with his best friend - the chronic bachelor, Buddy (Stuart Townsend) - into turmoil, to say the least. That
Chaos Theory's climax comes with a late-night excursion to the middle of a lake, in a rowboat, with one of its two passengers plotting murder, suggests how dire (in a humorous way, of course) things have become.
Chaos Theory is a bit slapdash, its tone shifting from farce to melodrama in the blink of an eye, and there's an excruciating set of soft-rock ditties mucking up the soundtrack. But Reynolds is more than likable in the lead, as his character goes from an obsessive-compulsive convinced that his life is under control to a guy jettisoning all sense of order, and opting, in the face of marital collapse, to live recklessly, by "whim, chance and chaos."
Chaos Theory **1/2 (out of four stars)
Directed by Marcos Siega. With Ryan Reynolds, Emily Mortimer and Stuart Townsend. Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Running time: 1 hour, 26 mins.
Parent's guide: PG-13 (sex, profanity, alcohol, adult themes)
Playing at: Ritz Five
Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com. Read his blog, "On Movies Online," at http://go.philly.com/onmovies.
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