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ARTICLE

DVD Review: Imagine Me & You
by R.J. Carter
Published: June 20, 2006

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Rating:

Country: USA
Release Date: June 27, 2006
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Director:
· Ol Parker
Cast:
· Piper Perabo
· Lena Headey
· Matthew Goode
Related Sites:
· IMDb: Imagine Me & You

Grade: C+

"Imagine Me & You" opens at the wedding of Rachel (Perabo, "Cheaper by the Dozen") and Hector (Goode, "Match Point"). At the reception, Rachel makes the acquaintance of Luce (Headey, "The Brothers Grimm"), the florist brought in to provide the flowers for the affair. They hit it off famously -- in fact, Rachel feels as though they could have been friends for years.

Unable to get Luce out of her mind, Rachel decides to do a bit of matchmaking with Luce and Hector's best man, Cooper (Darren Boyd), an incorrigible ladies' man. What Rachel is the last to find out, however, is that Luce is gay. When she does find out, however, it only fuels her fascination with Luce, which leads Rachel to question her feelings for her long-time friend, lover and now husband Hector.

The happy ending the script demands comes at the price of Rachel's marriage, as Hector finally discovers that the reason Rachel has been so out of sorts isn't that there's a problem with him, but that she loves Luce more. So he steps out of the way, even though Rachel had confessed that she was going to tough it out with the marriage; he doesn't want her to stay out of guilt, so he lets her follow her heart to true love. Chuck commitment and fidelity, forget that love is more an act of will than a warm and fuzzy emotion.

Forgetting for the moment the message of the movie (difficult, given that it's the whole plot), the presentation of the film actually shines in spots. There are shots of beautiful cinematography, and some well done bits of back and forth dialogue as Hector and Rachel run into Luce and her friend in a supermarket, when Rachel ultimately learns Luce's orientation. Young Boo Jackson's role as Henrietta, a scene-stealing quidnunc who's never out of difficult questions, was a constant bright spot.

Ultimately, however, "Imagine Me & You" is a romantic comedy that ends up being neither.

The special features on this disc include a three-minute statement from Director and Writer Ol Parker, who talks about falling in love and first meeting his wife. Parker also provides the commentary track, both for the feature presentation and for the deleted and extended scenes (done as two separate selections from the menu -- selecting with the commentary actually provides a visual framing device for the scenes.) Finally, there's a twenty-minute Q&A session with Parker and the cast members.

This is a double-sided disc with both widescreen anamorphic (2.35:1) and full screen (1.33.1) presentations. Audio can be set to either English 5.1 Dolby Surround or Spanish Dolby Surround, with optional subtitles in English, Spanish or French.

Previews on this disc include "Thank You For Smoking".