Following the success of Valentine’s Day (2010) and New Year’s Eve (2011) director Garry Marshall presents his latest multi-narrative picture: April Fool’s Day. As with its two predecessors April Fool’s Day follows the stories of several characters, in contrast to New Year’s Eve, however, the protagonists in question are simply trying to make it through to 12 noon rather than all the way to midnight. This gratefully makes for a much shorter run time.
Mandy (Alicia Silverstone) and Zip (Ashton Kutcher) are a thirtysomething couple living in Detroit who have reached a decided rut in their relationship. Silverstone is ready to settle down but Kutcher (in a real acting stretch) plays an immature fishmonger with a penchant for pranks. Weary of Zip’s juvenile behaviour and unimpressed with his April Fool’s rouse of a fake marriage proposal Mandy breaks up with Zip and the two go their separate ways. Simultaneously, Lexicographer: Pearl (Demi Moore) mistakenly interprets her lover’s (Natalie Portman as dog walker Suzie) admission that she is not gay and wants to leave her as an April Fool’s joke. It is only when she realises that all of Suzie’s belongings are gone that reality dawns on her and she consoles herself by mainlining tequila in a bar, one which just so happens to be owned by the currently man-despising Mandy. It doesn’t take a genius to work out where that particular strand leads.
The remainder of the threads are similarly tokenist and shallow. Mark Wahlberg is the obligatory pop star, putting in an appearance as his 90s alter-ego Marky Mark who is inexplicably hell bent on reforming the Funky Bunch. Unfortunately on the first of April music executives cannot take his proposal seriously. Christopher Walken plays Marshall’s tried and tested “old man” character. This old man hasn’t spoken to his wife since last April the first after a seasonal trick went awry and their only son was left in a coma. And, lastly, Will Smith plays a dad trying to get home from the front line to see his daughter in a school April Fool’s performance to prove to his wife that he’s still there for his family as well as his country.
Marshall’s shameless paint-by-numbers mashing together of super-saccharine storylines reaches an all-time, devastating low with April Fool’s Day. As with Marshall’s other ‘holiday’ incarnations the audience cares nothing for the characters on screen and the acting is flattened by the, at times, horrifically kitsch dialogue. Some of the plot points dwell firmly in the realm of the unbelievable and, for the sake of tact if nothing else, you’d have thought Marshall would have re-shot a sequence in which Kutcher and Moore inadvertently pick up the pieces of a failed relationship by bonding with the two broken hearts. This film is so bad, in fact, that I’d be willing to wager it was a contributing factor in the Kutcher-Moore decision to divorce. Certainly, I couldn’t look at somebody in the eye again after appearing in this.
The only, and I do mean the only, good thing about this film is that it’s fantastic to see Alicia Silverstone working again. This role may not have given her anything to chew on but appearing next to the likes of Portman should remind producers that she is easily as capable an actress. I award this film one torch, and it burns for Alicia Silverstone.
April Fool’s Day is in cinemas nationwide from Monday 2nd April.
Helen has awarded April Fool's Day one Torch of Truth.
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