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[life less ordinary, a] [photo gallery]

-- usa / 1997 / 102 mins

-- director : danny boyle

-- screenplay : john hodge

-- starring : ewan mcgregor, cameron diaz, holly hunter

-- certificate : iia(hk), r(us), 15(uk)

-- awards :

a life less ordinary is the third creation from the shallow grave and trainspotting team (director danny boyle, producer kevin macdonald, writer john hodge and star ewan mcGregor). as you know, transpotting is britain's best film in 1996, anything comes after that does not have the same impact will automatically be deemed as disappointing. And thus it is a pretty hard job to match up the trainspotting phenomenon.

this film, a life less ordinary, has received disappointing reviews that i do not agree. the reason is that I do not think it is a film that can be compared to trainspotting. trainspotting aims to examine a particular youth culture but this film is only supposed to be fun. in my opinion, this film is successful as a romantic comedy.

the film starts off in heaven, where you can find everything is in white. it is said that the angels have not done their job well in bringing men and women together and that leads to high divorce rate. a senior angel, gabriel (dan hedaya) then sends a pair of angels, o'reilly (holly hunter) and jackson (delroy lindo) to earth to bring together a janitor hired in a large company, robert (ewan mcGregor) and the daughter of the company's boss, celine (cameron diaz). if they fail their mission, they will not be able to return to heaven again.

down on earth, robert is fired and is replaced by robots. he gets furious, traipses the boss (ian holm)'s office and demands his job back with gun pointing at him. and then it turns out that robert kidnaps celine who is in the office in order to take recenge, just for revenge!

then, we follow the entire kidnapping journey. It is found that robert, a poor nice guy, does not have the intention to kidnap and he knows little of what to do in a kidnap. and celine, who has bad relation with her father, teaches him what to do in a ransom and assists him in every way to get the money. at the same time, o'reilly and jackson follow closely and look for a moment that robert and celine would fall in love. but different from other romantic comedy, there seems to be some invisible force pulling them apart. finally, after going through several events, they finally fall in love with the "hard-work" of the angels.

a life less ordinary is absolutely funny. though I watched it alone, i laughed loudly many times. one of my favourite moments would be when celine gives robert lessons on how to demand a ransom from her father and when tod (maury chaykin) checks robert and celine's activity in the abandoned house. moreover, the ending of the film, which is done by using clay animation, is unexpected and because of this, nobody stepped out the cinema by the time when credits were shown.

nevertheless, it does have flaws. i cannot see why o'reilly as the angel who has to bring the couple together would point the pistol towards them, may be this is to test their faith? I don't know.

most of the cast did a great job. ewan mcgregor is perfect as a sympathetic character, cameron diaz is charming and is able to hold the audience's attention. holly hunter and delroy lindo do okay job, though Hunter looks a little bit too wild for an angel.

the cinematography of the film is gorgeous and I am impressed by many great scenery shots. finally, the music is pretty good too, pop or rock music lovers may enjoy the score more.

[photo gallery]