The Competition

Wow is the acting wooden as hell in this!!! Thora Birch is in one of my fav movies....Now and then, Ghost world...to name but a few. But she is AWFUL in this, emotionless, monotone, and so wooden and stilted. Each scene is overly long with boring dialogue. It would look out of date if it was filmed in the early 2000's. and the stock background music is so overwhelmingly abused in every single scene it makes my ears bleed, i actually dont think there is a single scene in this movie that doesnt have background music! its so unnecessary and cheapens the film even more than the writing and acting does, and thats saying something. There is no chemistry between Birch and Klein...none whatsoever. Birch acts like she doesnt even want the paycheck from this movie...

A woman only dates men for 6 months, some guy is persuaded to try and seduce her. He falls for her then, for a laugh, they wreck loads of his friends relationships.

This is basically a twist on Never Been Kissed - which I am ok with - but it lacks in most areas.

The leads are especially weak here. I like Thora Birch but she is really badly cast here. She hasn't got enough warmth to carry this off - Chris Klien gives the most wooden performance I have seen since Phantom Menace.

The morals of the plot are a bit twisted, It is hard to feel good for the characters when it all comes to a head.

Bland, unemotional with no pzazz!

Main character's bad hair distracted me through the entire movie which wasn't hard since the acting was poor and the story itself was same overplayed thing seem a million times.

I'll start by saying I'm NOT a fan of Thora Birch in anything since she grew up, so that was a challenge right off the bat. Her "acting" in Dungeons and Dragons sank that film all by itself! I watched 40 minutes of The Competition despite her being a very wooden actor because I thought it was a cute, frothy concept and I really like Claire Coffee ever since I watched her in Grimm. But as others have noted, whoever did Hair, Makeup, and Wardrobe was inept or asleep at the wheel and I found it, along with the wooden acting by Birch, too much to get past to make it to the end of the film. I have no complaints about the other actors except perhaps her Mother's boyfriend who I found smarmy but maybe that is the point - can't say. But visually Birch's clothes were so ugly and unattractive and her hair - what is that about? The makeup was no better.

The guys (except as previous noted) seemed genuine and believable. Their interactions were honest and their acting was good - no complaints there. Claire Coffee was good as always! I think it could have been a nice RomCom had the casting of the female lead been better and the hair/makeup/wardrobe not been a fail. Mind you - I'm not saying Birch isn't pretty enough or even that the female lead has to be pretty because she doesn't. But these failures were a distraction on top of her poor acting in every scene that made me completely turn off of her character which made it impossible for me to watch the rest of the film.

THE COMPETITION is a romantic comedy of the worst kind. And for a guy who doesn't particularly care for the genre to begin with, I sure seem to find myself sitting through more than my fair share of them. But this one takes the cake in terms of just how awful it truly was.

There are a few relatively decent laughs here, and I feel like the writer at least started with a nearly coherent idea, so that's what kept be from giving it a lower score than I did. But the acting is bad, the directing is bad, and overall the story just falls apart before it even gets going. It's embarrassing. Even hardcore rom-com fans will find themselves hard-pressed to find much good in this film. Do not recommend.