How Do You Know

Lisa (Reese Witherspoon), a softball player for the U.S. Olympic team, steps outside her comfort zone of dating jocks and meets George (Paul Rudd), a nice-guy businessman having legal troubles at his dad’s company. The love triangle is completed by Matty (Owen Wilson), a pro-baseball player who thinks he might be falling for Lisa and considers giving up the myriad other women in his life. Love takes a back seat, though, when George is indicted and Lisa is cut from her team for being too old.

ClearPlay In Action!

Originally receiving an R rating for language, How Do You Know appealed and got a PG–13. The profanity isn’t profuse — roughly 40 instances are ClearPlayed — but three F–words are edited, one clearly discernible even if you don’t read lips. ClearPlay also cuts some sexual situations (intimations of implied intercourse) and frank dialogue, though there is still some discussion of anonymous sex that may make you want to limit viewing to older members of your family. However, the movie’s attitude is that casual sex is bad, so use your own discretion.

Is How Do You Know as good as it gets?…

Compared with many of today’s outrageous romantic comedies, How Do You Know seems rather tame and old–fashioned, maybe even slow. The movie’s director, James L. Brooks has been writing movies and sitcoms for most of the last 50 years, including Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets. While How Do You Know isn’t as fully realized as those movies, it has many of Brooks’ trademark interesting characters and witty dialogue. It may not be laugh–out–loud funny, but it certainly qualifies as smile–inside humorous, and I found it to be a refreshing change of pace from most romcoms that don’t mean anything.

Marty Nabhan— ClearPlay Nice Guy

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and some strong language (on appeal/re-edit).; Originally rated R for some language.; 121 min; Directed By James L. Brooks