How Do You Know

This film has a tendency to catch you off guard.  Depending on the type of person you are, this might be in a good way.

How Do You Know is a film that follows the lives of two lost individuals just trying to make sense of their suddenly plummeting lives.  Lisa (played by Reese Witherspoon) is a former professional baseball player who gets cut from her team despite her talent and love for the sport.  George (played by Paul Rudd) finds himself caught up in illegal circumstances involving work, where his loyalty to his father and his honesty begin to conflict.  Despite all of this, they meet and become taken away by one another.

Personally, I enjoyed this film, but I want to completely acknowledge that it is an unconventional film which is in no way suitable for the majority of audiences out there.  In other words, it takes a specific type of person to find this film somewhat charming.  I seem to be one of them.

Let me try to explain why.  This film has a way of being completely self-aware.  It is awkward and the relationships that form are awkward.  But the fact that the characters have no filters - they say everything that they're thinking when they're thinking it - makes it refreshing and sort of inspiring.  The whole movie runs like a constant admittance of the truth.  Whether it's the truth to yourself, the truth to another person, or the truth to the dating world and those within it, it is truth none the less.  I think it's honest and endearing.  I really enjoyed how everyone played their characters, especially Reese Witherspoon, who always transforms herself with every role she's given.  I also want to mention Owen Wilson who I thought was funny and someone you find yourself rooting for much like Reese's character does, even though his character doesn't quite deserve it.

Now, from a more practical approach.  The ending of the film was cute but not really fulfilling.  Another slightly anti-climactic moment.  The film wasn't really smooth.  Transitions from scene to scene were fine, but things just felt out of place sometimes.  But the biggest fault of the movie, I think, is that with all the awkwardness of watching the film, the meaning can easily be lost to the viewer.   I believe the meaning was that life happens, and love happens, and you can't always control it, but it's important to accept it for the good and the bad.  Something along those lines.

So interpret it as you like, but if your not open minded to the unconventional, this might not be the one for you.  I give this film 6.6/10 because even though I like aspects of it, it wasn't as whole as I know it could have been.