Task of 'Matchmaker' Trouble-Free in an Irish Disneyland

What vocation is more ancient or innately human than the art of bringing people together to laugh, talk and get to know each other? Yes, doctors and lawyers and others with such "real life" jobs have it cut out for themselves, but how do their professional dilemmas compare to those of the matchmaker's? Giving its version of the age-old profession, Hollywood has produced yet another saccharine, 90s Darcy-Lizzy date movie in the form of The Matchmaker.

Smart, young urbanite Marcy (Janeane Garofalo) works for a Boston senator up for reelection. Having troubles in his campaign, the JFK wannabe assigns young Marcy to go back to the "old country"--Ireland--and trace his hereditary roots. Young Marcy arrives in a small, unheard of Irish town (where men have singing competitions and buses are still gender-segregated) at the peak of a quaint annual ritual: The Match-making Festival. Being single, Marcy is a marked woman; a lamb laid out to the wolves.

In true Hollywood style, opposites attract and Marcy meets her match in Shawn (Jay Sanders) whom she at first suspects of bestiality (he's very affectionate with his dog). It's a meeting of working automaton in gray business attire and stiletto heels with a principled, home town, ex-journalist who "took the easy way out" to do the right thing.

Like typical girl meets guy stories, it's just a matter of time before the champagne bottle pops and, in Disneyesque fashion, all sorts itself out. Dermott, as one of two esteemed and veteran matchmakers, who are constantly battling one another, makes it his 24 hour mission in this tiny hamlet to bring people together in a pleasant way. As he says on his home video (one of the movie's oddly anachronistic touches): "I am a maker of matches, the human kind"--that's for clarity's sake--"where people get together, get married and live happily ever after." He then proceeds to reassure his viewers that this ambitious project of long-term matchmaking can be measured quantitatively with pie charts and line graphs.

Fortunately, in what is a mainly predictable film, Milo Shea, as the engineer of the necessary happy ending, comes off well. Shea, on the whole, is convincing and gives a charming, fatherly portrayal of the title character. Garofalo, while retaining her characteristic snappy wit, had a certain sluggish weariness both physically (a little too prominent eye wrinkles) and in delivery. At times, she seems to be shouting her lines (even accounting for her character's abrasiveness) without much conviction. Like-wise, Sanders, while manifesting a certain irreverent charm, was more often smiling in cheerful, bovine manner than giving any punch lines.

But all this only makes more obvious the fault of the entire movie: a lack-luster script spiced up with more action than compelling plot. This general lack of scintillating language and not wholly original scenes grew even more grating through the stereotypical portrayal of rural Ireland that, in attempting to appear sweet, seemed oppressively imaginary.

The film has all that is needed for a pleasant romance, with parts updated for the 90's: beautiful aerial shots of virginal countryside, infidelity, political corruption, sibling rivalry, alienation, death, etc. It has the necessary passionate love scene, the anguished drunk lover's "let's destroy the car" scene, the rushing to the airport to find your lover's already flown away scene and a prudent number of idyllic walks by the sea shore.

Essentially, The Matchmaker is a pleasant yet hackneyed film in which a young American leaves America to find herself, community and, yes, undiluted love. As might be expected, the screenplay is no chef d'oeuvre, nor the acting heart-stopping. But it fulfills its purpose as a genial love story with an exotically back-to-one's-roots setting for its never-never land.