Failure To Launch is loaded with talent and a romantic comedy that was at the tail end of the classic late 1990s and early 2000s explosion in the genre. It stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey as the leads. Sarah Jessica Parker had just come off the long-running Sex and the City, and McConaughey was only a few years removed from another beloved 2000s rom-com, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. McConaughey is not quite at the peak of his acting career here in this movie, it’s still almost a decade until he would win his Oscar. The movie’s story is about a man who, unsurprisingly given the title, is in his mid-30s and has failed to launch from his parent’s home and live on his own. Enter Paula, who will fix all of his parents’ problems. It’s perhaps a bit funny in retrospect that living with your parents was seen as so problematic almost two decades ago when now, because of the state of the world, it’s commonplace.
As romantic leads, both Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey are charming. You can buy these beautiful people as a couple, and they have chemistry. It’s not off the charts, but it’s way better than the chemistry SJP had with any of her male counterparts in Sex and the City. She’s delightful and breezy here, and it’s such a treat after the romantically tortured Carrie Bradshaw. McConaughey’s charm feels effortless, as always, even though there’s probably a lot of work behind the “Alright, alright, alright.” affability, as recent leading man Glen Powell can probably attest. As an audience, we want to like them and are rooting for their success. That’s half the battle right there.
Parker’s Paula is a professional interventionist – that is, parents hire her to get their sons to move out of the house. She has the methodology to romantically hook them down to a science – with several detailed steps that allow her to offer a guarantee to her clients that she’ll be successful. But there’s one rule: she never sleeps with her targets. McConaughey is a boat salesman with a sad past who lives with his parents. Terry Bradshaw is his fish-loving dad, Al, and Kathy Bates is his mom, Sue.
His parents want to regain their freedom to live on their own terms, so they hire Paula after a recommendation from their friends who also had a son suffering from failure to launch. Paula is ever so confident, thanks to her methodology, that she’ll be able to get Tripp out of the house by mid-June. Things don’t go according to plan, and Tripp tries to give her the boot by bringing her home to his parents, as that’s the way he normally ends his romantic entanglements. (There’s a funny scene at the start of the film introducing us to him where his parents walk in on him with another woman.)
In a bid to keep him hooked and not let down Sue and Al (and definitely not act on any feelings that being around Tripp is stirring up), Paula breaks her number one rule and sleeps with him. Their feelings for each other deepen, but there are naturally complications. Paula’s best friend and mockingbird-hating Kit (Zoey Deschanel as a manic pixie dream girl) and Tripp’s friend Ace (Justin Bartha), with an assist from Bradley Cooper’s Demo, forces Paula’s job out into the open. The betrayal stings and there’s a big family dinner with the parents and Paula that goes so wrong. There are some funny moments with duct tape and Tripp tied to a chair, but in the end, our emotionally damaged lovebirds end up back together and happily ever after.
The plot of the movie is entirely predictable, but that’s not a bad thing. The love story is exactly what you would expect of the genre, and that makes it satisfying to watch. There are some cool water scenes, thanks to Tripp’s boat profession, and an emotional scene in the pouring rain that probably existed in thousands of gifs on Live Journal back in the day. There’s a well-placed f-word after the couple briefly separates, along with some brief nude backside from Terry Bradshaw that this reviewer forgot about and was shocked by again, making this movie fit solidly into the PG-13 category of heat. For lovers of a good needle-drop song, the end credits are largely set to Hit the Road Jack from Ray Charles, which is just fun.
In retrospect, Failure to Launch is charming and holds up over time as a good example of the era when lower-budget rom-coms were still shown in theaters. Sarah Jessica Parker and McConaughey are believable as a couple, and fans of the fake relationship trope will get a lot of satisfaction from this film. It’s a fun watch.
Failure to Launch is now available to watch or purchase on your streaming site or store of choice.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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