Did You Hear About the Morgans?

In Did You Hear About the Morgans?, a New York attorney and a real estate broker find themselves in a typical rom-com plot: They’re going to split up, but fate surprises them with a rustic getaway of sorts that brings them together again, all set to a puzzling soundtrack that incorporates not country music but hippie-generation staples such as “Going Up The Country” by Canned Heat and “Midnight Rider” by the Allman Brothers Band.

Here, Paul (Hugh Grant) and Meryl Morgan (Sarah Jessica Parker) witness the murder of one of her clients, Girard Rabelais (Vincenzo Amato)—a snitch. I’m not sure why we ever learn his name, as he’s dispatched quickly, without preamble, and we learn nothing else about him. But it’s a memorable name that must have taken some effort to think up.

U.S. Marshals, led by Marshal Lasky (Seth Gilliam in the worst monotone this side of Ben Stein), enter them into a witness relocation program. They’re whisked away to the exotic, fictional locale of Ray, Wyoming, which is about 45 miles from the less fictional Cody, which has one of those generic discount stores where you can buy mayonnaise by the gallon.

Abandoning their Central Park view for a ranch house, the estranged Morgans rough it, acquiring important skills like repelling grizzly bears and withstanding Sam Elliott as yet another stoic cowboy who happens to be an undercover Marshal, Clay Wheeler. His wife Emma (Mary Steenburgen) teaches them how to shoot a rifle. They meet the townspeople and, as is customary in such stories, they’re endeared to them. Why send them to Bumblefuck, Wyoming, to stick out amongst the town’s handful of residents? Why not another metropolis, where they can disappear amongst nameless, faceless millions? Logic be damned, their reunion requires a catalyst.

The only shining light in this formulaic, last resort entertainment, is Hugh Grant. Like Sir Alec Guinness in the Star Wars films, he takes banal dialogue and delivers it with such timing and cleverness that inane one-liners draw laughs. Their night’s sleep having been so quiet compared to Manhattan, he quips, “I could hear my brain cells dividing.”

With the exception of one dialogue sorting out their differences, his infidelity, and so on, the uptown, house-hawking, vegetarian Meryl gets to flex Ms. Parker’s typecast, cosmopolitan dependency act, being flummoxed by the absence of her personal assistant and PDA. It’s perplexing how two people so successful, running their own businesses, lack the mental faculties and emotional agility to adapt to situations even such as this. How did they ever survive being entrepreneurs in the business center of America?

One also wonders why the killer, who manages to track them (as is always the case), even bothers following them. Isn’t it obvious they’ve been relocated by the feds? Aren’t criminals supposed to run away from the cops? Well, thankfully we have Clay who actually leaves the Morgans alone at the ranch to go to the rodeo—at the climax, conveniently enough. Some of the townspeople are taken to be dunces, and the film still regards them as country bumpkins even while demonstrating their degree of intellect and wisdom.

At just 44 years, Sarah Jessica Parker is already beginning to look like she’s had too much facial work and not enough food. High contrast lighting at night helps restore for a brief moment the youthful exuberance and glow that she radiated in Steve Martin’s L.A. Story. But maybe that’s the point. Weathered by life, work and her soured relationship, the beauty returns to Meryl’s face when she and Paul reconcile. Despite her rejuvenation and Mr. Grant’s charm and sardonic wit, little can reinvigorate the otherwise exhausted plot.

Did You Hear About the Morgans? • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 • Running Time: 103 minutes • MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sexual references and momentary violence. • Distributed by Columbia Pictures