Slow start. Then very entertaining and cute.What I would have changed: After the boat left, he realized the Flamingo Dancers would come for him, so he got on a train out of town. He realized he loved Anne, and because the seasons changed, he knew Anne and the Shaw family would return to St. Charles for the season. He gets on anther train to St. Charles and runs into The Flamingo Dancers. The Flamingo Dancers wanted their money. They taught him the meaning of "Paying through the nose." Anne, seeing him in town, all bruised up and still caring about him, tries to help him. Then he would learn that Anne has money. She only took the job because she was on summer break from college and decided to stay to spite her rich parents. When she found out about her love needing the money, she seeks out her family whom she had become estranged. They had only sent her to school to find a husband. Since she found love, they help. He asks her about how she could forgive him for the french chick. She explains that after spending a year working for them, she saw how miserable Shaw made the family and how important it is to marry for love, and not money, she remembered him. When she learned that he faced The Flamingo Dancers for a glimmer of a chance to win her love back, she decided she could begin to forgive him. Then he can keep those last lines in his book.PS, how is there a train to an island?

Wilson plays Alex, a best selling author with writers block while trying to start his next novel. He owes money to The Cuban Mafia and has been given 30 days to pay or a very short lifetime to regret it. This is a task not made easier given the fact that the Cuban heavy's have cooked his laptop. As a result, he hires law stenographer Emma, (Hudson), so he can dictate the novel to her as a means to an end to get a manuscript.I found the first 15 minutes of Alex & Emma, very funny indeed, especially when Wilson was trying to hide from the Cubans by trying to prop the door closed with a chair that was far too small and then being dangled mercilessly above the street by his feet. It remains hilariously funny when we first meet Hudson's character and the ruse in which he had lured her to his apartment.I was settling down to watch what I thought was going to be a homage like throwback to the 1930's screwball comedies that I love so much, especially given the 1920's style opening titles.But then it changed kilter completely to standard rom-com fayre. It was quite bland in fact. And the constant flitting between the real and the fictional book story became irksome very quickly. It quickly became a film within a film and left me slightly confused as to which characters I was meant to be giving attention and/or sympathies. However, seeing Sophie Marceau and Kate Hudson in many scenes is more than adequate compensation for a red blooded man.Marceau can hardly be recognised as the femme fatale from the Bond film The World Is Not Enough, as in this movie, she sports a Louise Brookes/Clara Bow style haircut. Marceau plays it for laughs but sadly gets very few of them, but the Marceau/Wilson sex scene, (all tastefully delivered in silhouette) is very amusing, especially given the next shot where they are both head to foot in baby oil to indicate energetic perspiration.I did like the character of Emma, an independent sassy career girl as we've seen Hudson play before in flicks like How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. Since Alicia Silverstone disappeared of the map, Hudson is the only actress I can watch that sets the old pulse racing and any film she appears in always goes to the top of my to watch list.Now comes the most difficult part of my review, describing the ending. OH MY GOD! the ending actually made me want to vomit into the nearest receptacle as it descended into the most diabetes inducing sweet twee garbage I've ever seen in a rom-com, and I love rom-com's.Gripe aside, Alex & Emma wasn't that bad but too many changes of direction. Screwball/Rom-Com, Contemporary/Period, Funny/Not Funny. It was all too much for my poor brain to cope with in 96 short minutes.A nice cameo from director Reiner complements this enjoyable but very disjointed movie.Enjoy!

I've seen the movie yesterday, on DVD. I had read most comments after buying, but I do not regret. I found the beginning rather slow and not very much to laugh about. But when Emma is going to work for Alex, there is a plot. The way the film has been made, by showing the real story (writing a book) mixed with played scenes from the book (the characters come alive), I liked very much. Well cut, fast, telling, and never a dull moment. Not a magnificent film, but quite entertaining. I think if the parts had been played by famous actors, like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, the appreciation would have been higher. But Kate and Luke have enough appeal to be attractive to look at and to be convincing.

This film may be "loosely" based on A True Love Story. That is what other people have said about it. It is "EXACTLY" based on "Paris When It Sizzles". This was a film with William Holden and Audrey Hepburn, using exactly the same premise and conflict. It follows the premise of the story so closely it could almost be scene for scene. I'll always take the former, Holden and Hepburn as the two to watch, but, Kate and Like were certainly acceptable in their performances. They made the film entertaining. It is light hearted and appealing, just as originally intended. It follows that old Hollywood guideline, when every film had to have a happy ending. No deep message here, just fun.