Different movies offer different takes on true love, its value, and how it’s found. Those tenets form the underlying basis of pretty much every romantic comedy ever made, and that holds true even if they’re made-for-TV movies. Beauty & the Briefcase has some troubling views on love and offers up a jumbled message about compromising your ideals, following through on a task, and overall priorities in life. It starts with Lane (Hilary Duff) walking through the busy New York streets scoping out men and assigning them to various categories according to looks, behavior, and quality as potential mates. Right from the start the message seems to be that side of American culture that encourages women to focus more on romance than their professional lives.
As a fledgling writer whose biggest break was a recently published article in a semi-national female style magazine, Lane is thirsty for larger things, and she gets her chance when her photographer friend (Amanda Walsh) sets her up with a pitch session to the managing editor (Jaime Pressly) at Cosmopolitan magazine. She lands a first page assignment and must go undercover at a finance company to find a man in a suit who meets all the criteria in her 10-point list of a perfect man. She lands the job despite being utterly incompetent (that’s no exaggeration, she lies through her interview and has to cause a blackout to get the job) and begins her quest of dating every man in the office to find that perfect 10. Being the impressionable and emotionally overwhelmed woman that she is, she gets swept off her feet by a man with an accent (Chris Carmack) that threatens to throw her off her assignment, only to have a sudden awakening and realize that love isn’t always everything you want or expect. Sometimes it’s the nondescript, boring monotonous love right in front of your nose that you were looking for all along.
If you don't read too far into it then it's harmless fun. But if you attempt to take some lesson away from it, it's almost destructive in its views on love and
The cast includes Chris Carmack, Matt Dallas, Jennifer Coolidge, Michael McMillian, and others.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
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"Beauty & the Briefcase" is on sale February 8, 2011 and is not rated. Children & Family, Comedy, Romance. Directed by Gil Junger. Written by Michael Horowitz (teleplay), Daniella Brodsky (novel). Starring Chris Carmack, Hilary Duff, Jaime Pressly, Jennifer Coolidge, Matt Dallas, Michael McMillian.
