Failure To Launch

Herald rating: * *

Someone in marketing must be kicking themselves for allowing this one to be called Failure to Launch - it's such an apt title for a film that, despite its starpower, falls flat on its face.

McConaughey seems to be attracted to romantic parts where he's set up to fall in love, and this time it's his parents who intervene.

In his mid-30s, Trip (McConaughey) is an extreme sports enthusiast and boat salesman who still lives at home - in other words he has failed to launch himself into the big, wide world.

Somehow you can't blame him. His mother (Bates) allows him to treat their house like a five-star hotel, and for commitment-phobic Trip, the best way to prevent a potential relationship is to take his date home to meet the parents.

Trip's two best mates also still live at home, so his parents realise they are going to have to find an unconventional way of getting their son to move out. They manage to find a woman whose career it is to date men still living at home, and give them confidence to move out.

That woman is Paula (Parker), who successfully hits on Trip and they begin dating. Paula has a set of steps with her clients, and Trip laps them all up, until, you guessed it, she discovers she may have real feelings for Trip. This coincides with Trip discovering his new girlfriend isn't exactly who he thought she was.

You can imagine what happens next - it's not a stretch.

As Trip and Paula conduct their rocky relationship, they are overshadowed by their supporting cast, especially Zooey Deschanel as Paula's neurotic and wacky flatmate.

Though the film is short on laughs, it does at least provide one big laugh-out-loud moment that involves Zooey and her potential suitor performing CPR on a mockingbird. It might sound odd but it plays out beautifully, unlike Trip's other supposedly funny encounters when traditionally friendly animals attack him.

And that is probably the film's biggest problem. Light on story and struggling to reach 96 minutes, Failure to Launch is afflicted by random segueways into not-so-funny segments that contribute nothing.

But there are plenty of shots of McConaughey with his top off, and Parker looks terribly Sex and the City.

CAST: Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zooey Deschanel, Kathy Bates
DIRECTOR: Tom Dey
RUNNING TIME: 96 Minutes
RATING: M
SCREENING: Village and Hoyts Cinemas