Careering Into Romance

In the amiably glossy if naggingly old-fashioned Hollywood romantic comedy “Life or Something Like It,” Angelina Jolie’s Lanie Kerrigan, a Seattle newscaster, declares that her life is perfect. She loves her job, has a fiance (Christian Kane) who is a famous baseball player--and now she has a chance at a network slot that will make her a nationwide celebrity. That is, if she lives long enough to land it.

A cocky, independent cameraman (Edward Burns) has maneuvered her into interviewing Prophet Jack (Tony Shalhoub, bearded and shaggy), a street character who predicts (a) how tonight’s football game will turn out, (b) that there will be hailstones tomorrow and (c) that she will be dead within the week. Shaken but dismissive, Lanie is a little nervous when Jack proves right as to the winner of the big game, then gets plenty scared when hailstones hit Seattle the next day. Burns’ Pete, who doesn’t hesitate to tell Lanie that she is the most delusional, self-involved, self-absorbed woman he has ever met, suggests that she might avoid Jack’s dire prediction if she changes the kind of person she is.

Writers John Scott Shepherd and Dana Stevens and director Stephen Herek are clever in the way they play out Lanie’s fate, which, not surprisingly, finds her discovering that her baseball star lover seems pretty simple in contrast to the wise and witty (and sexy and handsome) Pete. Lanie has taken her blond glamour look from Marilyn Monroe but lacquered it over and poured her gym-toned body into tight, high-style Dolce & Gabbana power suits.

Pete manages to reach--or so it seems--the real woman beneath the sleek veneer, so Lanie just might stave off imminent mortality. Ultimately, the film turns on the old love versus career conflict, and as a result it seems a bit sexist. It’s hard not to believe that if it were Pete who had a shot at the big time that the filmmakers might not insist so strongly that a man would have to make Lanie’s choice.

“Life or Something Like It” is an adroit crowd-pleaser, and Jolie and Burns exude charisma and the right chemistry, with Stockard Channing in a terrific take on a veteran media star who is Lanie’s idol. But the film has a distinct retro undertow, and its point of view toward women is, if anything, a step back from those Rosalind Russell career girl movies of the ‘40s.

*

MPAA-rated: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, brief violence and language. Times guidelines. relatively mild in every way.

‘Life or Something Like It’

Angelina Jolie...Lanie

Edward Burns...Pete

Tony Shalhoub...Prophet Jack

Christian Kane...Cal

Stockard Channing...Deborah Connors

A 20th Century Fox release of a Regency Enterprises presentation of a Davis Entertainment/New Regency production. Director Stephen Herek. Producers Aaron Milchan, John Davis, Chi-Li Wong, Toby Jaffe. Executive producers Ric Kidney, Ken Atchity, Teddy Zee. Screenplay by John Scott Shepherd and Dana Stevens; from a story by Shepherd. Cinematographer Stephen H. Burum. Editor Trudy Ship. Music David Newman. Costumes Aggie Rodgers. Production designer Bill Groom. Art director Helen Jarvis. Set designers Donna Williams, Allan Galajda. Set decorator Lesley Beale. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes.

In general release