Movie Review

Looking for life's satisfaction

by Gloria Diaz
Assistant Editor

Getting up, going to work, finding out you have one week to live, realizing your life is not as perfect as you thought... okay, so maybe it doesn't sound like a normal day.

This is, however, the plot of "Life or Something Like It," starring Angelina Jolie and Edward Burns and directed by Stephen Herek.

Jolie plays Lanie Kerrigan, a Marilyn Monroe wanna-be reporter for a Seattle station who yearns for the national network spotlight. Burns plays Pete, the cute, laid-back cameraman assigned to work with Kerrigan after she finds out she is up for a network job in New York.

When Lanie is sent out to interview a homeless man named Jack (Tony Shalhoub), a self-proclaimed prophet, Lanie is given the news that she only has one week to live.

For the next 20 minutes we find Lanie in utter denial of her prophesied death. She begins the search for the true meaning in her life.

"My life that seemed so perfect, now seems like some big greasy doughnut," she says.

What does she mean by a doughnut? The empty hole in the middle would be her apparent perfection. Her life includes her engagement to hunky Mariners star player Cal Cooper (Christian Kane). And among other things, she was given a big job offer, a great body, a fancy house (that never looks lived in) and a Mercedes sports car.

Is this, however, who she really is?

Obviously her blonde hair is fake (which is hard to get used to). She has to work hard to keep that body, and her fiancée doesn't seem all that perfect as the story progresses. We go through Lanie's emotional roller coaster from denial, to acceptance, to denial again.

"I cant get no satisfaction," seems like an anthem for her current situation. Unfortunately, we find that when she does find her satisfaction, she doesn't have much longer to live.

The chemistry between Burns and Jolie gives the movie the comedic edge it needs. The funny sexual quips between Pete and Lanie make it obvious that Pete has a thing for Lanie. Once you are introduced to the characters, you figure out that there has been some sort of history between them.

The chemistry between Pete and Lanie is rather fun to watch and plays a pivotal role in Lanie's path to self discovery.

In Jolie's last movie, "Tomb Raider," she played the heroic female Laura Croft. Although she's not battling a physical bad guy in "Life," she is fighting a different kind of villain; her own life.

In a way Lanie is a hero. She shows that no matter what path you choose, it's never too late to turn off that road and find a new path.

Although the theme of "live every day like its your last, because someday it might be your last" is rather cliché, it seems appropriate, especially after everything that's gone on in this country for the past seven months.

Lanie starts living everyday like its her last when she stops showering everyday, wears grungy clothes while listening to Social Distortion, going out in something other than a suit and having a messy house--things we might find as usual, are extremely foreign to her.

This movie serves as another wake up call to question life and its purpose, and whether you have some "satisfaction" in your life.