Fridae

Diane Keaton always manages to salvage any mediocre film with her ebullient, larger-than-life performances. From those manic Woody Allen comedies to The First Wives Club to The Family Stone, she stamps every one of her roles with that inimitable Keatonesque quirk that keeps us watching her again and again.

In Because I Said So, Diane plays an overprotective mother of three grown-up girls. The first two (Lauren Graham and Piper Perabo) are happily married, and Diane is eager to see her youngest (Mandy Moore) get hitched too. So she puts out an ad in the newspaper seeking suitable candidates for her daughter. After sifting through numerous weirdos, two very handsome and very eligible men (Gabriel Macht and Tom Everett Scott) appear. Now it is up to her daughter to decide...

Although this film initially tries to jazz up the usual romantic-comedy formula, it still reverts to the same old way of resolving its characters' situations. Worst, it consistently pokes fun at the English spoken by the Asian characters that appear in it, making this the most politically-incorrect film we've seen in a while.

Very predictable stuff, but the charms of Diane and the rest of the cast make it watchable. Long live star power. Die Asian stereotypes, die.