Not a must-see

Movie Review
Blind Dating
Directed by James Keach

Being set up with a stranger by well-meaning kin or friend is already complicated. If the "blind date" you’re paired with is actually visually impaired (what are the odds?), it could easily become a prank worthy of Bitoy’s Funniest Videos, or in this case, an interesting premise for a romantic comedy. The downside is that it isn’t entirely relatable.

In Blind Dating, Danny (Chris Pine of Just My Luck) is a fiercely independent blind man who uses his cane sparingly, eschews seeing-eye dogs (as a child, he was tricked into eating droppings), and maintains that his classmates at law school need not know about his blindness as it is "private."

His is the best candidate for a new medical procedure that could potentially grant him vision or result in brain damage and memory loss of massive proportions. Needless to say, it takes balls to even consider being a pioneer lab rat at a special clinic for the blind.

Danny easily maintains the illusion of "normalcy." Unseeing since premature birth, his baby blue eyes do not require camouflage and his American-Italian good looks can only be described as "easy on the eyes." He is sensitive and intuitive with people. He can also hit a baseball and shoot a basketball in quick succession, skills used to con ballplayers with his best pal.

Given a supportive family and a small social circle that extends to his allies at the clinic, shrink Dr. Evans (who doesn’t know Jane Seymour?) and specialist Dr. Perkins (Stephen Tobolowsky of Groundhog Day), Danny few little doubts about himself and his ability to relate with other people... except in a romantic vein. Those who fancy him are ineligible: his 14-year-old sister’s jailbait friends, a hooker who conducts her business in the limos owned and operated by his older brother Larry (Eddie Kaye Thomas, American Pie), and even Dr. Evans who has a penchant for taking her clothes off during their sessions. (What is it with Seymour and stripping these days? In Wedding Crashers she showed her breasts; this time it’s a bustier and garter belt peepshow.)

A "12-year-old virgin stuck in a 22-year-old body" in his own estimation, Danny is taunted by his brother for being "afraid of the vagina," and determines to start dating rather than stay home watching classics like Casablanca. And so he goes on a bevy of disastrous blind dates arranged by Larry. Among them, a crybaby overcome with pity for him hiccups her way to an early exit; a dominant type insists Danny let "Big Momma" take care of him from the limo to the dinner table all the way to the restroom; and a flake blindfolds herself in an attempt to experience "the blackness" with him — this one didn’t make it out of the limo.

By the third bad hookup, Danny is leery of his brother’s matchmaking. On his own time, Danny befriends and falls for the feisty Leeza (newcomer Anjali Jay), Dr. Perkins’ new assistant whom he has butted heads with on several occasions.

A lovely East Indian girl with a soft heart and a tart tongue, Leeza is engaged to marry Arvind (Sendhil Ramamurthy, Heroes), the son of a traditionalist, who like his father expects her to manage the family biz and be in the family way ASAP. As Leeza would rather study medicine and continue her work at the clinic, she is increasingly attracted to the charming Danny, even on his not-so-charming days, because with him she can be herself.

Leeza’s dilemma is that she’s already made a promise to the nice, slightly pervy Arvind, and duty and loyalty to family override self-realization. Plus she’s not too sure Danny would be just as attracted to her if the procedure works and he sees she’s ³no American beauty.² For his part, Danny’s problem is to convince Leeza to give their fledgling relationship a chance. His insecurity is that she would rather be with a more acceptable guy who can see.

What keeps this rom-com from being successful, despite the inevitable happy resolution, is that it makes too many demands on itself. Is it a movie about a blind man coping with the challenges of living and loving — The 40-year-old Virgin meets Scent of a Woman? Or should the movie have concentrated on a blind man willing to risk everything to gain sight and dealing with the effects of his decision, making an issue of whether sight is essential to ³completion²? Is it about love bridging the gap between darkness and light, the seeing world and the unseeing one? Or is it about bridging the gap between one culture and another, East and West? The combination of sticky subplots unnecessarily complicates the actual romance.

Comic timing is also sacrificed in favor of gimmickry, as in the succession of blind dates. At times, the comedy is superfluous; even if it’s a rom-com tradition to have the sidekicks end up happy together, the back-story with the shrink and the doctor wasn’t worth the screen-time. Lesser actors would have made a muck of it all. You have to applaud the cast for eliciting laughs at the right moments and delivering speeches (such as ³your smile moves my soul²) that are anything but natural in the right tone.

Background on the characters was given a lot of attention, best seen in the short narrative flashback at the start of the movie. In contrast, the interaction between the lead characters was sketchy at best. The nature of the rom-com welcomes clichés as it follows a set pattern; there’s only so much you can do when everything is designed to get the protagonists together at the end.

Cleverly arranging events to suit the purpose hooks the audience. We are supposed to keep apace with the courtship dance so that we fall in love with the characters as they are falling in love with each other.

In Blind Dating, we like the protagonists well enough, but we lose sight of why on earth they belong together and should accept no substitute.


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Movie Review Blind Dating Directed by James Keach

Movie Review
Blind Dating
Directed by James Keach