The Thing Called Love (1993)

There’s a whole contingent of people out there in IMDb land that love The Thing Called Love. They’re dumb. More specifically, they’re River Phoenix fangirls. Here’s the thing though - you can be a River Phoenix fan AND admit that most of his movies blow. That’s where I stand in the River Phoenix fan camp.

This movie is about a bunch of crummy wanna-be country music singers. Maybe I’m the only one to notice, but River Phoenix is about as country as Kurt Cobain. He’s emo before emo existed. And, unfortunately, in this movie he creates one of the creepiest male leads I’ve ever come across.

Here are some other reasons this movie sucks. There is nothing alluring about Samantha Mathis and why she’d be such a hot commodity is beyond me. Her ridiculous dead-daddy issues are ridiculous and her freak outs about death are over the top and laughable. It also has some of the weirdest scene transitions ever used. And if you can stomach country music (and I’m not talking Elvis country. I’m talking twangy whine and mope poor me life sucks country) than you’re already a step ahead of me.

The bright spot? (There always seems to be a bright spot in crap movies, doesn’t there?) The bright spot is Sandra Bullock. She’s adorable. She gives dimension to her fourth billing character and I get her. She’s real. I want to know her. The rest of the characters just scream bad screenplay.
I guess I’m done. It’s bad. End of story.

It’s really bad though. It’s not even over. I’m watching this as I write. It stays bad. Bad bad bad. Why the hell did they get married? How did this become a movie about an unhappy married couple? And domestic issues...I guess? It’s bad. Don’t watch it. Seriously.

Okay. Now I’m really done.