Full spoilers for a curiously despised comedy(?), How Do You Know. You’ve never heard of it, you don’t care.

How Do You Know(2010) stars Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson, Jack Nicholson, Kathryn Hahn, Mark Linn-Baker, Lenny Venito, Teyonah Parris, and Tony Shalhoub. It was written and directed by James L. Brooks.

IMDb says: “After being cut from the U.S.A. softball team and feeling a bit past her prime, Lisa finds herself evaluating her life and in the middle of a love triangle, as a corporate guy in crisis competes with her current, baseball-playing beau.”

I’ve watched this once before. It’s not very good. I haven’t seen a James L. Brooks film before, I don’t think. I know he’s meant to be a good writer and director. This is not funny. Or interesting. It’s… You know those movies that aren’t really about anything? Some of them can be good. The issue is much of the dialogue in this movie is very specific and it feels written. I feel bad saying that, because I just had to write a short film for my digital filmmaking class and I know it’s hard to write dialogue.

• So Reese Witherspoon is 31 and she plays softball. The new manager of her team is getting rid of her for what he believes are practical reasons but he’s basically a sexist prick.
• Paul Rudd was set up with Reese Witherspoon even though he’s in a relationship with a woman that isn’t going anywhere. And now he’s under investigation for tax fraud. He doesn’t know it yet, but that’s his dad’s fault.
• Owen Wilson is a baseball player? From memory? And he’s sort of seeing Reese Witherspoon and she’s clearly not into him. But later she’ll think she is into him. Neither choice really makes sense.
• Owen Wilson, who looks like a middle-aged dad: “Amazing sex! Female jocks are amazing!”
• Reese Witherspoon is irritated that this man has a drawer full of fresh toothbrushes and a stack of female clothing he buys specifically for one-night stands and he uses this as a metaphor for how we’re all on an assembly line.
• I love when Jack Nicholson says vague things about how much his son screwed up even though he didn’t actually do anything. And then his very pregnant assistant, played by the ever-talented Kathryn Hahn, who isn’t good in this, almost punches Dad Nicholson. What confuses me is we never learn anything about his business. It’s very confusing.
• Paul Rudd is a great actor obviously but he spends much of this movie personifying what I assume a walking talking clenched butthole would act like.
• I know other directors write dialogue like this that I like, it’s just… well, I don’t know, this was a box office and critical bomb for a reason.
• As Paul Rudd melts down over his tax fraud, Reese Witherspoon finds out her softball team will be moving on without her. And they meet for the most unlikable dinner anyone has ever had, where Paul Rudd acts more aggressive than any man should act. By the way they’re at an Italian restaurant, where “everything on the menu looks good” but they both get spaghetti. Reese insists they sit in silence and that makes Paul happy by the end he leaves grinning like an idiot.
• Oooooh, Tony Shalhoub is in this! I forgot! He’s Reese Witherspoon’s therapist, not that she’s the kind of person who wants or needs one, she’s very headstrong. He’s the bearded therapist, which is weird to see as a Monk fan.
• Owen Wilson to his baseball friends: “How do you know if you’re in love?” Another baseball player: “I wear a condom with the other girls.” Awwww, we love toxic masculinity.
• Oh right, Reese Witherspoon moves in with Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd moves to Kathryn Hahn’s neighborhood because he needs to spend less money. I don’t love this movie, but it’s always nice to see Paul Rudd in the prime of his life, at his most attractive. There is a bit where he slams his head against a table and forms a perfect ninety degree angle with his body.
• By the way, the day I intend to release this is the same day the trailer for Death of a Unicorn comes out, the Paul Rudd movie I’ve been waiting to see for over a year now.
• She instantly leaves when she realizes Owen Wilson doesn’t see this as their place but his place, and then Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson get to meet each other.
• I mean, the dialogue is just weird. Everyone speaks in a way I’ve never heard spoke. And Paul Rudd is the most awkward man in the world. Here’s something telling. At the beginning of the movie Owen Wilson makes Reese a weird smoothie/milkshake kiddy drink thing that she doesn’t like but is too polite to say. He’s so self involved. Paul Rudd on the other hand, is obsessed with Reese Witherspoon, and he makes a delicious alcohol drink that she koves and knows is good.
• Two good jokes in this: Owen Wilson writes a note to call Reese Witherspoon with when they’re having a fight. The note says “I got so mad I broke a lamp”. And Jack Nicholson says he’s so broken up about the damage he did to his son that he’s got hives like “When he took Lipitor”. Funny, I guess.
• Jack Nicholson’s character is a manipulative prick. His son doesn’t realize he’s a manipulative prick. But he is. I swear I wrote notes for this somewhere. God damn.
• There’s a fun bit of physical comedy where Paul Rudd looks out his window and realizes Reese Witherspoon is standing outside his apartment and he has to duck out of view in case she sees him seeing her.
• Paul and Reese go to the hospital to see Kathryn Hahn after she has her baby. Her husband, who I’m pretty sure was in Mike & Molly, gives this really nice speech about why he wants to be there for him, and then the two of them very clearly start to feel this conversation pertains to them. He gets upset because he wants to have a good conversation with her while they wait for a bus, but it shows up right away. She gets off the bus, and then two minutes later another one comes.
• Paul tells Dad Nicholson that he’s reached a decision concerning who goes to prison. Either Paul goes to prison for three years or Jack goes to prison for 25 because he’s a repeat offender. Jack clearly wants his son to go to prison instead of him, which is ridiculous. No father should act that way. Paul tells Jack that if he has any chance in the world with Reese Witherspoon, he can’t go to prison. So he’s going to her birthday party to figure out if he has a shot. Jack clearly doesn’t want to wish him luck. It’s worth noting this is the last movie Jack Nicholson acted in. He retired after this.
• There is a really good moment where Jack Nicholson sees Reese walk towards his son and realizes that his son has a shot with this girl. Which makes him happy for a moment. And then he realizes he’s going to prison. And he gets bummed. He’s not irredeemable. But he’s not great.

Overall Rating: 4.4/10(I mean, there are good moments, but I don’t think it’s very good. At all. And I don’t know really, what the point of any of it is. It’s very muddled.)
Rudd Rating: 6.7/10(You really can’t ignore how massive his forehead is here. But there’s some charm.)

Next time… an animated nerdy odyssey through Hollywood! That nobody knows exists.