It's said that opposites attract,
but for the brief period they're onscreen together in the dire comedy Over
Her Dead Body, Eva
Longoria Parker and Paul Rudd are one of the more bizarrely mismatched couples
in recent memory. With her scarily toned features and unnatural bronze skin,
Longoria Parker looks like the glazed centerpiece of a Christmas feast, especially
given her role as a Bridezilla whose bossy imperiousness probably isn't limited
to planning the perfect wedding day. Rudd, for his part, has the
don't-give-a-shit attitude that's become his stock in trade, a persona likely
aided by how little he appears to care about this movie. When Longoria Parker
is crushed to death by an ice angel on their wedding day, the action
fortunately skips ahead a year, since asking Rudd to reveal the slightest hint
of authentic grief would be asking way too much. There are loves so powerful
that they transcend mortality, and then there's this one.
Body's sitcom-ready high-concept premise
turns Longoria Parker into a controlling, vengeful ghost. A year later, Rudd's
sister (Lindsay Sloane), in a desperate effort to get him to move on and find
someone else, sets him up with sexy psychic Lake Bell, presuming that she'll be
able to communicate with Longoria Parker and get the go-ahead for Rudd to
re-enter the singles pool. Bell succeeds, but Longoria Parker isn't ready to see
her ex-fiancé date again, and she gets particularly upset when Bell takes a
romantic interest in him. Though she can't appear in the flesh, Longoria Parker
does everything in her power to sabotage the relationship from beyond the
grave.
Writer-director Jeff Lowell (John
Tucker Must Die)
could have gone many different ways with this idea—the screwball comedy
of Heaven Can Wait,
say, or even the wistful, unabashed romanticism of Ghost—but he takes the low road
more often than not. In the inevitable wacky sex scene, for example, Longoria
Parker tries to spoil the mood by making it sound to Bell like Rudd is gassier
than the Goodyear Blimp; the farting noises go on for what seems like a full
minute. And yet Rudd keeps pulling the film out of the abyss with his hilarious
shrug of a performance, sprinkling funny one-liners whenever he gets the
opportunity, and looking adorably nonplussed the rest of the time. He seems
vaguely embarrassed to be in the movie, yet unwilling to phone it in entirely.
It's a lesson in how to make the most of a bad situation.