Ivan Reitman's Six Days, Seven Nights is, simply, one of the most pleasant romantic comedies to come out of Hollywood in a long time. The story is not fresh, by any stretch, but it's clear that Reitman (Stripes and Dave) and scriptwriter Michael Browning (in his first produced screenplay) understand well the principles of the genre, how to start with a man and woman who despise one another, put them into extreme circumstance in which they're bound by some force outside themselves, and then have them convincingly fall for each other.
The story is fairly simple:
An editor for a Cosmopolitan-esque magazine (Anne Heche) takes a vacation to a Pacific island with her boyfriend (David Schwimmer). He proposes, she accepts. Then, just as they're settling in for an idyllic week, she gets a call from her boss, ordering her to fly to Tahiti to oversee a photoshoot. Reluctantly, she goes, and her only transportation is a rather shaky island charter piloted by a rather crude, often drunken beach bum (Harrison Ford). On their way, they hit a serious storm and end up crash-landing on a deserted island, where they have to survive the elements, a lack of provisions, their mutual dislike, and a gang of ruthless pirates who show up.
Okay, not deep stuff, but it all works because the script is well-structured, the dialogue snaps and crackles with life, the pacing is crisp.
What makes the film work most of all, however, are the performances. Ford and Heche light the screen with some good old electricity in their scenes together, with chemistry that echoes that of some classic screen couples--Tracy and Hepburn in Pat and Mike, Grant and Hepburn in Bringing up Baby, Powell and Loy in the Thin Man series, Gable and Colbert in It Happened One Night.
From Ford, this is not a surprise, because he may be our biggest Movie Star now, as he's always had that enormous charisma that makes it impossible not to watch him when he's screen. Six Days also reminds us, however, that he is a masterful comedian, something he hasn't had much opportunity to show off as he's moved from the much slighter roles that launched him (Han Solo and Indiana Jones) to heavier roles that Carry the Entire Fate of the Free World On Their Shoulders (Patriot Games, Air Force One).
As for Heche, she may be Ford's most delightful romantic co-star ever, better than Karen Allen, or Kate Capshaw, or Carrie Fischer. All of this is ironic, of course, since, with last year's revelation that Heche was the woman who had made the recently outed Ellen so happy, there was rampant speculation that she'd never be able to do a convincing romantic scene with Ford in this film. This is after all, acting, and to suggest that Heche can't pull off a romantic role because she may be gay is just plain silly. When the requisite moment arrives for the first sexual charge between Ford's and Heche's characters you know the one that's in all romantic comedies, when the couple stand nose to nose after some fierce bickering and for the briefest of moments you think, they're going to kiss, but of course they don't, not just yet, because the tension has to build until we want it as much as they do the moment is as charged as anything we've seen recently. Unless Heche falls victim to petty bias because of her sexual orientation, she could become one of our great comedic actresses.
Every year Hollywood brings out a new crop of summer romantic comedies, and most of them disappoint. It's nice to see they finally got one right.
by Joe Schuster
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