**SPOILER ALERT**

If you don’t want to know what happens in this movie, then please just read the front page summary. There are plot details revealed in this review.

I love to watch a movie where the child actor steals the movie. It just warms me when a little child (male or female) can deliver a performance that totally outshines their adult counterparts. Those child actors are why I loved Jerry Maguire (Jonathan Lipnicki), Man on Fire and War of the Worlds (Dakota Fanning), and as of late Signs, Little Miss Sunshine and No Reservations (all with Abigail Breslin). There’s just something authentic and innocent about them that really engages me and forces me to follow along the movie to discover how the world around these children changes because of them.

In this movie we find Catherine Zeta-Jones, a high powered chef in an upscale New York restaurant, having to deal with losing her sister in a car accident and becoming a new parent of her niece Zoe, played wonderfully and emotionally by Abigail Breslin. The story is kind of a cookie-cutter pattern to the typical (independent adult who after life altering circumstances has to take care of a kid who eventually softens their heart and shows them the true meaning of closeness) and at times feels like just your average romantic comedy. The romance part comes in when Catherine Zeta-Jones’ boss hires Aaron Eckhart to be the sous-chef, after Catherine is forced to see a therapist and kind of freaks out because of the loss of her sister.

Naturally, Aaron is a polar opposite to Catherine, he’s free and likes opera, he wears 80′s MC Hammer pants when he cooks, sings in the kitchen, all of the things opposite to Catherine who is strict, stern, structured, and works like a machine…classic opposites-attract scenario that you will find in MANY romantic comedies. Again, if that’s all the movie was, I would not have liked it, I would have probably reviewed it like, “It was just eh” but because of Abigail’s performance, I must say that I at least enjoyed HER.

She’s just great! From the moment you meet her on screen, you can just feel like something bad is about to happen. Her odd and quirky little face reveals so much character and personality when she acts. You can really feel her pain when she is lying in the hospital and realizes that her mom has passed away. I didn’t buy into any of the other actors emotions throughout the movie like I did with Abigail. She sold me.

I realize this review is very one-sided and it’s not actually a review of the movie, it’s more of a review of Abigail Breslin. The movie was ok. I never really felt the chemistry between Aaron and Catherine, and I truly didn’t feel, apart from 1 breakdown scene in the freezer at the restaurant, like Catherine mourned that much over her sister. It was a slower progressing romantic comedy than I’m used to, and in the end, I really think it was less about the romance between Aaron and Catherine as it was about the relationship between Abigail and Catherine. Abigail made this movie watchable for me.

I wouldn’t have paid money to see this in the theaters, and it would have garnished a pretty low spot in my Netflix queue. It’s a movie that you watch with family, when a lot of people are around…but don’t miss Abigail’s performance.

Content Warning: This movie is rated PG for some sensuality and language. There’s some intense kissing between Catherine and Aaron, but that’s it. The movie is actually pretty clean and it’s quite surprising that a romantic comedy would actually make it as a PG movie.

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