Blended is a comedy film which stars Adam Sandler who many would know from 50 First Dates (2004) or The Wedding Singer (1998). I chose to mention these two films because they are also films which Blended’s other lead Drew Barrymore also appears opposite Adam Sandler. Blended comes from director Frank Coraci who also directed the Wedding Singer (1998) so the three know each other quite well and really did a good job together to create a very touching romantic comedy.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2xOGokTSdE[/youtube]
Blended is about a couple who go on a blind date with one another in the beginning, which is both Adam Sandler who plays Jim and Drew Barrymore who plays Lauren. But they don’t hit it off at all and don’t really give each other a chance during the blind date. Through a mutual friend who finds out that they can’t go on a trip to Africa (I won’t spoil the reason why) both Lauren and Jim make plans to go in their place (the friend can’t get a refund because of the short notice). Without knowing, both Lauren and Jim take their families on a trip to Africa and bump into each other when they arrive. The movie goes from there and slowly the families “Blend” hence the name Blended.
You don’t really need to know that much about the plot and it’s all given away in the trailer anyway. But going into this movie I was not expecting much from it at all. In fact for some reason I was expecting something that wasn’t really that great. I even had trouble getting people to come with me to watch it. I think maybe because the recent Adam Sandler movies like Grown Ups 1 (2010), Grown Ups 2 (2013) and Funny People (2009) sort of put me off Adam Sandler movies as they haven’t been anything phenomenal. But Blended was a refreshing surprise.
Blended had a lot of humorous scenes with different people in my cinema laughing at all points in the film. But you would expect that from a comedy and from this genre. Being an Adam Sandler movie that is of course what you want. But Blended also had some really great character development moments. Jim is a single father raising three girls and Lauren is a single mother raising two boys. Both families are struggling in a way to fill the gap where the missing parent should be and many of the side characters which are the children need a lot of help. Some of the kids are going through changes with their bodies and need advice about what how to deal with themselves. But as single parents of children of the opposite gender’s, both Lauren and Jim have trouble with that. You get to really know some of the kids and what they are feeling in this movie and I liked that. There are some really genuine awwww moments and even some sad points and you can’t get sad points in a movie without having characters you care for and I cared for the characters in Blended.
The acting in Blended is quite good for a comedy and Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore having worked together in the past really know how to act opposite each other (see here for an interview with the two stars). While I still think their previous films together were above this film, this stands up well in comparison. The children who were played by Emma Fuhrmann (Espn), Bella Thorne (Hilary), Alyvia Alyn Lind (Lou), Braxton Beckham (Brendan) and Kyle Red Silverstein (Tyler) were all great. I don’t really like watching movies with too many children in it, but I didn’t really find any of them annoying in this movie. Most of them provide some really good laughs on screen and it was a well chosen cast.
In terms of the directing from Frank Coraci (see interview with Frank Coraci here) for this comedy, I thought it was good. There are some parts of the film where it slows down a bit and some parts where things move along a bit quickly. But to be honest I preferred that the film did slow down in some parts because that meant you got to know one of the characters a bit better. I also liked that during some of dialogue if you are paying attention, characters drop little lines about why they might have done a certain action which lets you know about what the character is thinking or feeling at the time. But in the moment you first saw what say someone like Jim did on his first date to Hooter’s and you think, I wonder why he did that? But then you find out and actually for him it was something nice that he was doing. The movie is full of these types of things and subtle hints such as looks from Lauren over to Jim during certain situations to suggest an action and these are written in quite well.
It’s not a bad film and it’s unfortunate that the trailers do not make it look better than they did. It’s a light comedy which will likely appeal to people who maybe are single parents or maybe are a bit older than 25. I think maybe teens might not enjoy this as much though so it depends on your interests. If you are a fan of Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler films like I am, then you’ll likely enjoy this one to. It’s a light comedy with a romantic element and some good laughs and great characters. This film was a much better and a more well constructed comedy when compared to something like Grudge Match and the humour is not so rude like something you would get out of Seth Rogen’s Neighbors and this is great to see. If you are thinking to see a comedy this week and skipping something action oriented like Edge Of Tomorrow or crying yourself to tears with The Fault in Our Stars then this movie will give you something to laugh at.
There’s nothing about this movie that I really have issues with. Blended is a touching comedy with great characters who slowly build up their romantic interest with each other as they “Blend” over the course of the film. Both Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore are great together and have one of the best working relationships on screen today. It’s a shame the trailers don’t sell the movie in the best way as it’s a well structured character driven comedy.
