A distant cousin to ""Sleepless in Seattle,"" ""Catch and Release"" is one of those new and different romantic comedies that takes the genre to a level of unknown territory. Actually, it's quite difficult to classify this movie as a romantic comedy at all. If anything, it's somewhat of a romantic tragedy, focusing on the aftermath of death, the importance of friendship and the everlasting search for the truth.
Similiar to ""Sleepless in Seattle,"" this film begins at a funeral. Jennifer Garner gives a sweet and wonderful performance as Gray, the would-be widow whose fiancAc died tragically shortly before their wedding. An idiotic move by the screenwriter has Gray's late fiancAc named Grady—however, all awkward name resemblances aside, ""Catch"" is a pretty good movie.
Gray moves in with two of Grady's best friends, Sam and Dennis. Sam is the overweight, funny guy played with charming detail by dialogue genius Kevin Smith. Sam works for the tea company Celestial Seasonings and spends many of his post-Grady days reciting Chinese proverbs from herbal tea boxes, making difficult situations seem poetic. He and Dennis (Sam Jaeger) demonstrate a chemistry rare to the world of the romcom, creating most of the comic relief and a little dramatic tension of their own.
The story takes off when mysterious lurker Fritz (Timothy Olyphant) shows up needing a place to crash after the funeral. He is the obvious love interest, another best friend from Grady's past, but when he brings with him a secret that has life-ruining potential, Gray is torn between what she thought she knew about her fiancAc and what she must accept as the truth.
""Catch and Release"" is a sad story, tracing the lives of four friends after the death of their common denominator. It's about the foundation of a friendship, how even after the ceiling collapses, the pillars still hold up the structure. It is unlike normal romantic comedies because its characters have real lives. They aren't simply names on handsome faces, depthless and void of detail. They have jobs, pasts, baggage and their own individual ways of dealing with the pain of loss. Gray paints the bare walls of her fiancAc's former room blue. Sam takes one too many sleeping pills, skips work and makes vodka milkshakes for breakfast. Dennis obsesses over the broken front door, and Fritz rediscovers his love for photography.
It is a film of many facets, lacing the imperfection of reality with idealized fishing trips and pillow conversations. Some of the ending could have been easily shaved off; however, a tidy bow finish still manages to work against the many painful realizations of the movie that precedes it. Nothing is sugar coated. Even Jennifer Garner's hair and costume repertoire is as normal as any woman's you might see walking down the street.
""Catch and Release"" is unique and surprisingly refreshing. One can only hope the romantic comedy continues to evolve, because films like this show that it has the potential to be more than just a low brow genre.
