When actor Scott Caan wrote this script, he did an amazing job of condensing a stock romantic comedy formula into one of the sharpest and most personable 30 something minutes you'll ever see. That section of Mercy is so affecting that even though the film only has one other decent scene in it, you'll stay involved with the story through all the other too serious, self-important melodramatics. The problem is that once Caan got to the end of the formula, he couldn't come up with any more plot on his own. This is like the move Jersey Girl, except Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez didn't have a kid so when Lopez' character died, there's nothing for the Affleck character to do but mope around on screen for another hour. And I actually liked Jersey Girl and also enjoyed this motion picture. Mercy is just another example of how writers today are so good at other elements of storytelling but can't plot their way out of a paper bag.
Johnny Ryan (Scott Caan) is that classic romantic comedy stereotype - the guy who doesn't believe in love. Johnny is an author of romantic novels who's happiest moment in any relationship with a woman is when she leaves the next morning without being asked. Then, to the surprise of absolutely no one who has seen even one of these flicks, Johnny runs into a woman who blows right through his nonsense and falls hopelessly in love with her. Mercy (Wendy Glenn) is a literary critic and her charm and confidence completely disarm Johnny. Their courtship, following Johnny's clever and wonderfully character defining interactions with one of his heartbroken friends (John Boyd) and two happily married others (Bre Blair and Troy Garity), is entirely predictable and thoroughly delightful.
Then the story jumps forward to Johnny's heartbreak after his relationship with Mercy has ended, which is totally done in earnest even though it's seems to be an exact mirror of his friend's heartbreak, which was treated as comedy. The story then jumps back to why Johnny's story is different and then jumps forward again to Johnny emerging from his grief and back into the dating pool. All of that stuff has an utterly different tone and approach than the opening rom-com fluff of Johnny and Mercy. It is dour instead of bubbly. It is overwrought instead of sly. It is about a whole lot of nothing instead of the reliable step-by-step paradigm of boy meets girl.
The scenes at the beginning with Johnny and his friends and then Johnny and Mercy are so much fun and so well crafted that I didn't mind the film shifting hard into essentially a different genre, from rom-com to tragedy. The initial switch was so jarring and so unexplained that I lost a little of my involvement and never got it back, not even when the switch was later explained, but by that point I cared about Johnny Ryan and where he was going to end up. Once that happens, and you don't have to necessarily do all that much original or daring to make it happen, you'll follow a character's story all the way to the end. If I hadn't been made to care about Johnny, I would have definitely lost patience with this movie and its schizophrenic nature.
It's almost as if Scott Caan wrote this script to prove he could not only create both a great romantic comedy and a great drama, but he could seamlessly weave them together. Well, Caan sure wrote a great rom-com. He wrote an okay but aimless drama. Combining them together, though, was pretty much a failure. It's probably a bad idea to begin with, but after the moment of tragedy that divides the two, Caan simply doesn't have enough plot to sustain the story. There just aren't enough things that occur and all the non-linear machinations of Mercy can't disguise that. After watching a series of events where two people fall adorably in love, the rest is nothing more than watching one of them be sad until the film ends.
With the excellent performances of Wendy Glenn as Mercy and Dylan McDermott as Johnny's agent, this movie starts great and whimpers to the end but remains worth watching.
Johnny Ryan (Scott Caan) is that classic romantic comedy stereotype - the guy who doesn't believe in love. Johnny is an author of romantic novels who's happiest moment in any relationship with a woman is when she leaves the next morning without being asked. Then, to the surprise of absolutely no one who has seen even one of these flicks, Johnny runs into a woman who blows right through his nonsense and falls hopelessly in love with her. Mercy (Wendy Glenn) is a literary critic and her charm and confidence completely disarm Johnny. Their courtship, following Johnny's clever and wonderfully character defining interactions with one of his heartbroken friends (John Boyd) and two happily married others (Bre Blair and Troy Garity), is entirely predictable and thoroughly delightful.
Then the story jumps forward to Johnny's heartbreak after his relationship with Mercy has ended, which is totally done in earnest even though it's seems to be an exact mirror of his friend's heartbreak, which was treated as comedy. The story then jumps back to why Johnny's story is different and then jumps forward again to Johnny emerging from his grief and back into the dating pool. All of that stuff has an utterly different tone and approach than the opening rom-com fluff of Johnny and Mercy. It is dour instead of bubbly. It is overwrought instead of sly. It is about a whole lot of nothing instead of the reliable step-by-step paradigm of boy meets girl.
The scenes at the beginning with Johnny and his friends and then Johnny and Mercy are so much fun and so well crafted that I didn't mind the film shifting hard into essentially a different genre, from rom-com to tragedy. The initial switch was so jarring and so unexplained that I lost a little of my involvement and never got it back, not even when the switch was later explained, but by that point I cared about Johnny Ryan and where he was going to end up. Once that happens, and you don't have to necessarily do all that much original or daring to make it happen, you'll follow a character's story all the way to the end. If I hadn't been made to care about Johnny, I would have definitely lost patience with this movie and its schizophrenic nature.
It's almost as if Scott Caan wrote this script to prove he could not only create both a great romantic comedy and a great drama, but he could seamlessly weave them together. Well, Caan sure wrote a great rom-com. He wrote an okay but aimless drama. Combining them together, though, was pretty much a failure. It's probably a bad idea to begin with, but after the moment of tragedy that divides the two, Caan simply doesn't have enough plot to sustain the story. There just aren't enough things that occur and all the non-linear machinations of Mercy can't disguise that. After watching a series of events where two people fall adorably in love, the rest is nothing more than watching one of them be sad until the film ends.
With the excellent performances of Wendy Glenn as Mercy and Dylan McDermott as Johnny's agent, this movie starts great and whimpers to the end but remains worth watching.